Word that San Francisco-based AsianWeek will cease publication will shatter one widely held myth: that the ethnic media don't face quite the same budget and readership as their larger, and better endowed partners. In recent years, as circulation of mainstream papers has declined, in many cases newspapers like La Opinion in Los Angeles actually grew. Spanish language television local newscasts in some markets (like the San Francisco Bay Area) actually beat out their English speaking counterparts in the ratings war.
One reason is that because the ethnic media don't have to appeal to everyone in their community, they can target a very specific subset of the local population — one often replenished by immigration. Because they "know" their target audience so well, the ethnic media are able to offer a product that meets their needs more easily than a large daily newspaper that must appeal to diverse audiences.
But the closing of the 30 year-old AsianWeek, with a circulation of 60,000, in a city where one in three residents is of Asian descent, proves that ethnic newspapers are subject to the same readership and revenue pressures as every other print media outlet.
One problem may have been that AsianWeek was published in English. Engllsh speaking residents of Asian descent have other places they can go for their news.
But the demise of AsianWeek is especially worrisome in California. Because of its unparalleled ethnic diversity, it is one of the few states that has a large enough population to support a vibrant ethnic press. The ethnic media remains a hugely important dimension of the California media landscape. The collapse of AsianWeeks sends an important warning signal that we cannot take them for granted.
