Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
Week Around the Ists
Interview: Coco Zhao, from jazz to M. Butterfly
In our past life as a public relations executive, we were always surprised at how China's media world appears to be in sort of a pre-Cambrian age with as many publications going out of business as there are coming in. Call up all the journalists you've invited after a press conference and there always be bound to be one or two publications that have folded up. Well it appears we haven't quite come out of those pre-Cambrian times yet, and at least the expat magazine circle is beginning to feel the heat. Hot on the heels of the closure of News Views Reviews comes the demise of Hint Magazine. We just received this in our mail from the editors of the publication:
Dear Friends of Hint Magazine,In the next few days, the February edition of Hint will be flooding the bars and restaurants of Shanghai. Unfortunately, this will be the very LAST edition of Hint Magazine.
Despite the fact that the readership was growing, the market was just was not ready for this kind of publication.
We tried to bring you, the discerning Shanghai reader, something different and we hope you enjoyed some of our articles and opinions.
We would like to take the time to thank everyone who has helped, contributed or assisted us in the course of our publication. We hope that we can keep in touch and can continue to work together in the future.
Regards,
Natalie Hill and Joseph Jones
We're not sure how Hint was meant to be "something different", or for the "discerning Shanghai reader", or what they meant by "the market was just not ready for this publication", but it is still a pity. We kind of liked the idea of a pocket-sized magazine, although with our poor eyesight, the small font made their stuff barely readable. The magazine also could have used better design.
Hint was published by the Shanghai Walker group which publishes《上海漫步》in both Chinese and Japanese. Their Japanese title is one of the most successful and popular Japanese expat rags in town. The company was presumably hoping to have as much of a success in the English language market as they had in the Japanese market, but too bad it didn't quite work out. They either came into the market a bit too late, or, maybe, just maybe, the expat magazine market has already reached saturation point.
More Shanghai media gossip on Shanghaiist
NVR says never again
Cameltoe alert at Shanghai Daily
SH Mag's revamp
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
post to facebook
I think the original editor and driving force behind the mag, Chris, left a month before right?
They did do some fiction, which was kind of newish. It was just like a mini version of the other mags, though.
I used to like it when CW had the detective fiction by Nury Vittachi.
Yes, I agree. Nury Vittachi was always a great read.
Natalie Hill was the main editor who started up the mag I think, not Chris. I disagree Kenneth, I thought it had better design than the other mags. Fiction section was interesting too. Saturated market though.
Hmmm, I liked Hint. Sad it's gone. Hopefully with a less saturated market the quality of the remaining expat mags will improve and tighten... if not for fear of failure (and being abused on Shanghaiist).
yeah, i also liked Hint, much better than thatshanghai mag, it's so thick and always talk about the same thing while hint was really interesting.
WHY WHY WHY
I always found Hint's habit of banging on and on about which food they'd paid for and which food they hadn't to be a bit weird.
Still, it's a shame it's gone.
I agree with shopgirl, although a little thin Hint was much better than CW or That's. It actually had a sense of humor and variety. Damn shame.
Hello All,
This is Chris Anderson, the former senior editor of Hint. Just saw this thread! Thought I'd throw in my two cents.
I left Shanghai in Nov 07 and Joseph Jones took over my position just for reference. He's now the editor of Lifestyle mag in Shanghai.
It was a quite sad when I heard Hint would be no more. We really were fighting an uphill battle most of the time, and were aware it was a saturated market. Things were constantly improving though, just not fast enough. If given another year, I feel Hint would have made it at the rate it was going.
"Fiction section was interesting too." Thanks for that! Saw the potential for it considering there was nothing like it out there so we gave it a shot (I wrote the first one "Sawyer's Brilliant Plan"). Same thing with the "Who do we think we are" food section where we went "on and on about what we paid" lol. Again, it was in the effort to bring something different that would be appreciated considering many of the food reviewers out there were at these same events but writing about them as if they had gone on their own. Got quite a bit of feedback from readers about that section, nearly all of it positive. Not so much from the other mags. ;)
"It actually had a sense of humor and variety."
What with our size and all, we did a pretty good job of spicing it up and bringing entertaining and useful info about the city. It was still evolving and getting better as it went. The humor was something incorporated after we had shifted from being geared towards travelers to more of an expat focus. It fit nicely into both Natalie's and my styles, so we went with it.
"They either came into the market a bit too late, or, maybe, just maybe, the expat magazine market has already reached saturation point."
I'll say it again, if given more time the thing would have been successful. Just didn't have the ah...backing. I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish with the resources we had. Two editors who did most of the writing (all of it at first), an assistant a small sales team, dysfunctional distribution, and a couple of killer interns (for a couple months).
Cheers,
Chris
Only just short of a year late ...
But thanks for the answer!
Haha yeah, well it has been a crazy year, and I don't visit the Shanghaiist. Better late than never!
Cheers