Wednesday’s Standard had a more detailed piece about the closure of Spike magazine:
Spike’s demise had been predicted among the territory’s small expatriate journalist community ever since it opened. Spike was launched last November and was supported by nine investors – individuals and companies – among them staff and contributors.
The magazine set out to use satire to explain the workings of the government, “at a time of heightened interest in politics, deepening cynicism about the government’s ability to meet the aspirations of Hong Kong people”. The July 1 anti-government demonstrations and pro-democracy wins in the District Council elections last year were the catalysts for its launch.
The magazine offered translations of Apple Daily and Next magazine stories, and an `Expat TV’ section whose fictional programmes poked fun at foreigners. The plan was to refinance it after six months, Vines said, having proved to potential investors its creators had “something to show”. While other investors were secured, the major investor did not deliver the amount they had agreed on before the company’s deadline.
“We were left high and dry, I’m afraid,” Vines said, declining to disclose financial figures. Political columnist and Spike investor Andy Ho said he thought the magazine put up a “good fight”. “People liked to read it, especially the expatriate community,” he said.
“The problem is obviously people tended to share the magazine, rather than subscribe to it.”
Well, that’s a good excuse! I don’t know what evidence they have to say this – clearly they could have had a higher circulation if every reader had bought a copy, but that was never going to happen. Many magazines boast to advertisers about readership rather than circulation, and it is to be expected that more than one person will read each copy!
A reader is obviously not impressed:
Reading the reports of Spike’s demise was sad, but Mr Vines comments about investors having to keep pumping in money, what a load of bullshit. A magazine is a buisness, Spike failed because it had no advertising and couldn’t attract enough people to buy copies to cover its costs. Ergo either the magazine was bad, the people running it weren’t doing a good job or both.
Well, obviously. It seems to me that the business plan must have been wrong. Getting initial investment from staff and contributors is fine, but if this was meant to last only six months then they always faced an uphill struggle. Establishing a magazine like Spike was always going to take a long time, and the lack of advertising was an obvious sign of this. If someone had asked me to invest in Spike after six months I think I would have had considerable reservations. So, although it is understandable that Steve Vines was upset that an investor let him down, I don’t think it is at all surprising.
I’m sure it took years before Private Eye became profitable, and I’m fairly sure they had the advantage of supportive investors (Peter Cook being the best-known) who were putting in money because they liked the magazine, not to make money out of it.
The market for English language media is not very strong in Hong Kong. I don’t think The Standard publishes circulation figures, and there is a good reason for that, whilst TVB Pearl and ATV World are subsidised from the profits made by the Chinese channels. It was always going to be a challenge to establish a new title, and they needed more time. If their business plan didn’t allow for that, then clearly they got it wrong.
What I find disappointing is that so many people seem to have been willing Spike to fail. I can only assume that Steve Vines has made a lot of enemies in Hong Kong.
Ordinary Gweilo 
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