A modern symbiosis

Some content for Bloomberg Businessweek is produced at the magazine's Beijing office. [Zou Hong / China Daily]

Partnership between media giants has been beneficial

High operating costs, strict legal requirements to work with local publishers and initial confusion over the best paths of distribution, marketing and circulation can create massive headaches for any foreign magazines making their first foray into China.

But for Bloomberg Businessweek, the panacea to all those ills came in the form of a sound partnership with Modern Media Holdings Ltd, a major media enterprise in China.

In March, Bloomberg Businessweek signed a licensing agreement with both Modern Media and China Commerce and Trade Press (CCTP) to publish a Chinese-language edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.

Under the agreement, Modern Media paid an undisclosed fee to use content from Businessweek. In turn, it would take care of Bloomberg's operations, such as circulation, marketing and distribution.

The deal, which comes two years after Bloomberg bought Businessweek from McGraw-Hill for a reported $5 million (3.8 million euros), allows the US-based company to expand its reach to CEOs, business leaders and dealmakers in China. It had an initial circulation of 350,000 copies in more than 30 cities across the country in November.

Paul Bascobert, president of Bloomberg Businessweek and head of business operations at Bloomberg Media Group, says they are eager to expand their business in China but the company "needed to find the right publishing partner, and didn't want to rush that process."

"Modern Media is the perfect partner since they are a progressive, innovative, successful company that is capable of translating Bloomberg Businessweek's bold vision into a reality," Bascobert says. "We look forward to working with them and China Commerce and Trade Press in the months and years to come on the new Bloomberg Businessweek /China."

Li Jian, chief operating officer and executive director of Modern Media, says the fact that most magazines subsist on advertising sales shows just how important operations is to print media outlets.

"Our strength relies on operations. We have a very professional team working on circulation, marketing and distribution," Li says.

Li says Modern Media has been building relationships with wholesalers and distributors throughout China to make sure the company's magazines are hitting the stands the way they want.

"We have our footprint around the country in a way that I think advertisers are really craving, which shows what we've done has paid off," Li says.

The Hong Kong-listed company, with 11 magazines titles such as Modern Weekly and Outlook under its belt, racked in 456 million yuan ($71.6 million, 54.3 million euros) in 2010 with an annual growth rate of 36.9 percent.

The revamped Businessweek is tailored to the sophisticated reader with in-depth analysis and insightful stories about Chinese policies, latest economic trends in the country and features on the most influential leaders.

They delve into subjects such as the people behind Occupy Wall Street as well as features on Wang Wei, CEO of Tudou.com, and Steve Forbes.

Bloomberg Businessweek/China is published in Chinese twice a month and also features local business and financial content produced by Modern Media. The magazine will also include content from Bloomberg's global resources in analytics, data, and information from 2,300 financial journalists worldwide, including more than 100 in China.

"Currently, 50 percent of the content for the magazine were drawn from the Bloomberg Businessweek and translated into Chinese, and the other half was produced locally," says Wei Hanfeng, deputy editor-in-chief of Bloomberg Businessweek. "As well known as Bloomberg and Businessweek - a magazine that has more than 80 years' history - the cooperation is a guarantee to the quality of the content."

Wei says they are going to increase local content to 60 percent to better target local readers.

"Unlike most business magazines which are really hard to understand with too much data and technical terms, we are trying to give insights to our readers in a more entertaining way," Wei says. "We tend to use more pictures, charts, nicely written language to illustrate the facts."

Bascobert says Bloomberg has been in China since 1995 with two financial news bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai and they know the kind of timely, thoughtful information that business leaders in China demand.

"As a company we have put tremendous efforts towards improving services and hope to establish a bold personality and vision for the magazine, and add top talent to the Bloomberg Businessweek team," he says.