TANYA GOEHRING
Source: Victor Ho, Sing Tao
OCTOBER 2017 BCBusiness 17
t h e m o n t h ly i n f o r m e r
tmı
"In business, I see the
movement of capital enabling
all these dierent ideas to take
root and benet society" –p.23
O C T O B E R 2 0 17
inSiDe
Drinking for charity ... First Nations finance ... Working capital ... Fun at the store ... + more
MAKING THE NEWS
Haini Xiao, editor-in-chief
of Lahoo.ca, claims a
readership of 60,000
T
here's a shakeup under-
way in Canada's Chinese-
language press—and its
epicentre is in Vancouver. Amid
the riptide of digital disruption
hammering traditional print
business models, the emergence
of social media platforms like
WeChat and a demographic shift
thanks to rising immigration
from mainland China, the indus-
try is in •ux. Even as census data
websites, often mom-and-pop
endeavours that rely heavily on
WeChat to reach readers.
"It's a bit of a free-for-all,"
says Alex Wan, co-founder and
managing director of Periphery
Digital, a Vancouver-based mar-
keting consultancy focusing on
Chinese-Canadians. "There are
at least a dozen Chinese-based
media companies, and nobody's
emerging as the champion."
Haini Xiao, editor-in-chief
of Lahoo.ca, is making a good
run at it. Based in a strip mall
in Richmond, Lahoo operates
a website publishing about 20
posts a day, as well as a free
weekly. Founded in 2013, it
War of Words
meDiA
PRINT RUN
show that from 2006 to 2016, the
Lower Mainland's population
of Chinese speakers climbed by
22 per cent, to some 385,000,
print stalwarts like Ming Pao and
Sing Tao have fought to attract
new readers in an increasingly
cutthroat market. World Journal,
the other big local Chinese-
language newspaper, shuttered
its Canadian operations in 2015.
Filling the gap are upstart news
Mom-and-pop news websites are giving the veterans
of Vancouver's Chinese-language press a run for their
money
by Jacob Parry
Simplified-Chinese
newspapers cater
to Mandarin-
speaking readers
from mainland
China. Metro Van-
couver's top three
by approximate
weekly circulation:
1. Dushi Bao/Cana-
dian City Journal
(published by
Sing Tao): 10,000
2. Rise Weekly
(Lahoo.ca):
2,000-3,000
3. Dawa News:
1,000-2,000
