History
The Standard was originally named the Hong Kong Tiger Standard. The newspaper was founded by Tycoon Aw Boon Haw after the end of the Chinese Civil War. On the backs of financially successful Sing Tao Daily and Tiger Balm, he attacked the English-language newspaper market by launching the paper on 1 March 1949 to give a Chinese voice to the world, to advance the interests of Chinese in all their endeavours and defend them against all kinds inequalities, challenging the pro-colonial establishment press. It started life as a broadsheet, largely edited and run by Chinese, but without the exclusion of other nationals. Politically, it shared the Sing Tao and Aw's allegiance to the Kuomintang.
These early editors were all thoroughly US educated and trained, the first being L. Z. Yuan (father-in-law of Golden Harvest founder, Raymond Chow). There followed C. S. Kwei, a leading Chinese lawyer and bilingual intellectual-author, and Kyatang Woo, an alumnus of University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
During the 1990s, when Sally Aw (adopted daughter of Aw Boon Haw) chaired Sing Tao News Corporation Limited, The Standard was the only English newspaper in Hong Kong that was allowed to be circulated in China.
In 1994, a third English-language newspaper, the Eastern Express, appeared. Its bold headlines and large photographs provoked a radical redesign at the Standard, which also suffered the loss of a great many reporters, sub-editors and advertising to the Eastern Express which boasted openly of its generous pay. The new paper quickly pushed the Standard into third place for full-price sales. The Standard adopted a distinctive orange and black masthead, and an advertising campaign that used a carrot logo and the maxim "clearer vision". Meanwhile an emergency recruitment drive brought in new staff from the UK and Tasmania (an obscure part of Australia), mostly from regional newspapers and on fixed contracts. Its Sunday supplement, Hong Kong Life, began free distribution in bars and clubs.
In 27 May 2000, facing challenges from its biggest competitor the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong Standard was renamed as Hong Kong iMail (香港郵報) and was reduced to tabloid-size in order to attract more young Chinese readers and refocused on business issues. In 30 May 2002, following the bursting of the Internet Bubble, iMail was once again renamed as The Standard.
The Editor-in-Chief is Ivan Tong, who replaced Mark Clifford.
On 3 September 2007, it was reported that The Standard was set to re-align itself as a free newspaper to be distributed in commercial districts like Central and Admiralty.
Read more about this topic: The Standard
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