With the exception of the public broadcaster, which is free from the pressure of advertisers, the leading news media outlets in Hong Kong are financed by subscription fees or donations, on the one hand, and advertising and sponsorship, on the other.
With regard to the relationship between advertisers and the newsroom, most media companies do not disclose their advertising income. There is no database containing such information, neither could any statistical data be obtained during the interviews. A survey conducted by the market research company NielsenIQ projected that expenditure on digital advertisements would equal that of traditional media campaigns in 2019, as a budget shift from offline to online advertising continued. Nielson further reported that 13 per cent of overall advertising budgets were spent on television advertising, while 11.7 per cent was spent on print (NielsenIQ, 2019).
The withdrawal of advertisements as well as boycotts of several news companies for political reasons or as a protest against their reporting is a public secret in Hong Kong. This has been occurring for more than a decade. In fact, interviewees suggested that the conglomerate controlled by Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, had stopped placing advertisements in Next Media company, which publishes Apple Daily, long before 2003. Other companies followed suit due to an anti-Beijing political stance. A similar situation was also faced by other media organisations, such as Stand News.
Respondents from other media organisations also recalled the occasional withdrawal of advertisements because of their investigative reporting, although this was less frequent for outlets other than Apple Daily. Despite these challenges, most respondents said they stood firm against any interference from advertisers over their editorial independence, and only very few respondents admitted they had chosen self-censorship over news content due to advertising pressures.
The government has also used public funding to advocate political views. For example, the Hong Kong government spent HKD 245 million on front-page advertisements in seven daily newspapers to promote a positive image of the enactment of the new national security law. After months of protests, when the government asked international public relations firms to help restore its image in 2019, they rejected the project.
