Apple Daily

Discussion Open Forum
1

Has anyone failed to notice the advertising blitz preparing us for tomorrow’s big launch of Apple Daily? Rumour has it that the latest addition to Taiwan’s already saturated newspaper market is going to feature a lot of titillating girly pix. Would they dare go as far as The Sun and feature a luscious topless beauty on their equivalent of Page 3? Let’s hope so!

Will you all be rushing to the news-stands (or convenience stores) to get your copy of tomorrow’s launch edition (and the free scrunchy apple they’re giving away with it)? I’ll probably pick up a copy out of curiosity, but don’t expect too much of it on the news side.

I like their advertising slogan “one bite and you’re hooked” (it sounds better in Chinese). One tiny nibble of that model in the ads would be more than enough to get ME hooked, and that’s for sure.

2

People were passing out samples of part of the paper earlier this week. Fugly layout, very busy. And the photo on the front page wasn’t the expected babe but octogenarian Koo Chen-fu :shock:. (OK, so it was the business section they were handing out that day…) Maybe it would be better just to rent Jan Dara.

3

How disappointing! I hope to God he at least had all HIS clothes on!

4

omni, you are one randy man, aren’t you, and you even got a gf already, you’re so funny… love your zest for life … and flesh!

no, there will be no naked girls or nipples in the Apple Daily. This is Wantai, I mean, Taiwan, and while Jimmy Lai will be tying one on, there will be no nudity per se. Just pretty girls, cute babes, and sometimes “scantily” clothed, but you won’t be seeing any like in the UK or Italy. It’s gonna be just like STAR newspaper and that Great Entertainment Paper on the stands now, but IN YO FACE and cool!

It will lose money for 10 years and turn a profit in 2013. Don’t worry, this Jimmy Lai guy is loaded. He has a plan.

Do you?

5

Who is the girl in the commercial actually? Just a model or someone famous?

6

[quote=“formosa”]
It will lose money for 10 years and turn a profit in 2013. Don’t worry, this Jimmy Lai guy is loaded. [/quote]

But is he funding it all from his own admittedly very-deep pockets, or might he perhaps be getting a bit of a helping hand from some people in another big city up in the north?

7

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]
But is he funding it all from his own admittedly very-deep pockets, or might he perhaps be getting a bit of a helping hand from some people in another big city up in the north?[/quote]

After calling Jiang Zemin something very bad in HK Next a few years back?

Doubt it, after all his former company Giordano got temporarily kicked out of China.

8

[quote=“Mr He”][quote=“Omniloquacious”]
But is he funding it all from his own admittedly very-deep pockets, or might he perhaps be getting a bit of a helping hand from some people in another big city up in the north?[/quote]

After calling Jiang Zemin something very bad in HK Next a few years back?

Doubt it, after all his former company Giordano got temporarily kicked out of China.[/quote]

But they’re very pragmatic in Beijing nowadays, and tend to overlook past indiscretions if someone can serve them sufficiently well in the present. They’ve even become chummy with Chris Patten, of all people!

Given all the recent talk about who is pulling the strings behind a large segment of Taiwan’s media, it does make one wonder why anyone would be willing to foot huge financial losses just to gain the dubious benefit of a readership in Taiwan.

9

Maybe, but this “turtle nest egg” thing was direct personal abuse, Chris Patten didn’t go for the balls when communicating. Moreover, NEXT Taiwan doesn’t seem very China-friendly to me.

10

Hmmm, then it will be interesting to see where it positions itself within Taiwan’s political spectrum – on the Liberty Times side, the China Times side, or astraddle the wall. That should become pretty clear from its first few editorials.

11

The Apple daily got a website even: appledaily.com.tw/template/twapple/index.cfm

12

I thought they were selling apples.

13

omni, it’s out now. got it at 711 an hour ago. just read it through, NOT that I can read Chinese. SMILE. but the pics are good, a few nipples and breasts – naked, yes – here and there, most in the back of the paper, and one IT girl, fully naked, but an apple covering her G spot, yes, and arms covering her pretty breasts. But full color!

Basically, it’s a bunch of color ads, 200 pages long tpday, with a full color pullout of Christy the apple girl, nikked, sort of, and lots of local faces we’ve all seen before, and one foreigner named " Frank Baetens, 35 years old" and he is pictured giving the thumbs up about something on page A8.

A24 has the IT girl, seems like it will be daily nakked foto, two f’s means she’s not completely nude, I guess… but what a looker she is today, whoever she is. WHo is she?

Yes, 200 pages for NT$10. nice. lots of color movie ads, full page movie ads, they are the best part of the paper. EVen if you can’t read Chinoise, I would recommend buying the paper just as a collector’s item, number one, the nipple shots on the back pages , two, and the POV Taiwan that one sees in the news pages, lots of sars stuff, yes.

Over all, I give it a B+ and will definitely buy it again tomorrow. It is NOT repeat NOT real newspaper by any means. But it is a good gossipy tabloid with travel/food/celeb features. It WILL inspire the other terrestial papers here, sure. and already has.

B++ all things considered…

14

You’ve got me positively drooling, Formosa.

If they don’t have it at the next 7-11 I try on the way to work, I’ll be hard put to stop myself getting in a tizzy.

15

Don’t waste your NT$5 (not NT$10) Omni. I found just ONE (1) fuzzy, pixellated nipple in the entire rag. Waste of 5 bucks.

16

appledaily.com.tw/template/twapple/index.cfm

17

[But sandman, that shot of sexy SHU CHI was worth the entire 5 pence, no?]

18

Sandman, ask your wife who Shu Chi is. Better yet, don’t. I’ll dish here: she’s from Taichung, originally, clerked in a video store, got discovered by a shifty photog, made a dozen “pictorial” books, which is a polite way of saying she took it all off, and what was left was nothing short of amazing,although most Taiwanese women, including my gf, think her mouth is way too big to be called pretty, what do I know, I am not looking at her mouth, yes I am, sometimes,anyways, after getting discovered at a babelicious take if off girl, she went to Hong Kong where she fell in with a Svengali manager there who made a series of soft porn films there for her, with her wonderful breasts in a starring, unadored role (OMNI, are you still with me here!), and then after those soft porn soft focus flicks, she made some new clothes on clicks with Jacky Chan and others, and she is now in the new issue of GQ here in Taiwan, which is why she was in Apple Daily today.And every other gossipy newspaper as well. Guess what, she was up for a leading role in HIDDEN TIGER CROUCHING DRAGON but her Svengali manager would not let her take it, even though Ang Lee wanted her, and wanted her badly, wanted her so badly that Mrs Ang Lee was getting a bit antsy. Anyway, Sandman, that’s Shu Chi. I am sure once you see her face, you will recognize her.She is not a HK girl, she is true blue Taichung wild girl,born and bred here. Her real name, before the HK stage debut, is Lin Gwei-ying or something like that. Anybody know her real name. Lin Li Hui. Yes. It is not Shu Chi, that’s for sure. And she spells it the mainland way. Surely, you know her, Sandman. She is the Madoka Ozawa of Taiwan,even better.

19

I finally managed to buy a copy of Pingguo Ribao (but wasn’t given any free apple). As Formosa said, it’s bloody huge! There are at least eight separate sections to it, and it’s quite a load to carry around – rather difficult to keep under control when you want to read it on the MRT.

As for the content, well, there are lots and lots of colourful pictures, a smattering of nipples (one or two more than Sandman gives them credit for, though nothing particularly eye-catching), and some loins and butts mixed in with the usual collage of pretty things that are always in all the local papers. In fact, it’s pretty much the same formula as Next magazine, but in larger format – Next on steroids, you could say. There are exposes about mainland Chinese hookers hanging out in the lobby of a 5-star hotel (the Far Eastern, wherever that is) and offering customers their services for NT$6,000 a shot (I thought that one would especially interest you, Formosa), celebrity nooky, and all sorts of other smutty gossip and hanky-panky. It’s all harmless fun, and amusing enough to browse through. But there wasn’t too much in the way of really serious news – unless I missed it hidden away among all the screaming headlines, illustrations and copious ads. And most importantly, a thorough search failed to identify anything that could possibly pass as an editorial. That strikes me as strange indeed: How can a newspaper not have an editorial? I’m sure that even The Sun has one of those, after a manner. Anyway, there were plenty of bits and bobs to look at and catch one’s interest for a moment, but it won’t really do as a substitute for the Liberty Times or any of the other more serious journals.

Which brings me on to something else that I read in yesterday’s Taipei Times and found somewhat puzzling. In an article about the arrival on the scene of the Apple Daily, one of the top bods at Liberty Times was reported as saying that they’d be facing especially strong competition from the new paper because “both target working-class readers.” The Liberty Times targets working-class readers? That comes as quite a surprise to me. Perhaps there’s some misunderstanding there as to what constitutes a working-class readership.

Oh, and I should also mention that the preponderance of pictures of DPP heavyweights and their supporters, as well as the tone of the cartoons, shows which side of the political fence they’re leaning towards – and I didn’t notice a single picture of Lien Chan or James Soong.

Finally, they had a little feature on our dear voluptuous Christy Chung and her nice little advertising job for Jimmy Lai. You were way off the mark there, Formosa. She wasn’t paid a mere US$25,000 – they proudly proclaim that she set a new local record for an advertising fee by pocketing a handsome NT$22.5 million for her efforts. She complained that climbing about naked on that pile of apples hurt a lot – but I guess the pay made up for it all.

I’m tempted to add a few comments about Hsu Chi here, but I’d better leave that for another day and another post.

20

[quote] Taipei (dpa) - Hong Kong’s Apple Daily launched its Taiwan edition
on Friday, further intensifying the competition in Taiwan’s newspaper
market.
The 160-page newspaper hit Taiwan newsstands Friday morning, but
most readers ignored it, buying instead the popular China Times,
United Daily News and Liberty Times.[/quote]
Most places I checked today, about six, were sold out. Wonder who is paying off DPA?