The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2005–2024
U Magazine survived its print closure by less than a year
Hong Kong Economic Times Group folded U Magazine's print edition in 2023 to go digital-only — then shut the digital version and staff ten months later.
Hong Kong Economic Times Group · U Magazine · 2024-06
What it means today
A print-to-digital 'transformation' should be judged on whether the digital product can stand alone — closing the profitable half first to fund an unproven half is a bet, not a plan.
What happened
U Magazine launched in December 2005 as a lifestyle-and-travel weekly under Hong Kong Economic Times Group, part of the same publisher stable as the free daily Sky Post. By 2023 it had run for 18 years covering fashion, food and travel across Hong Kong's print market.
On August 10, 2023, U Magazine announced its print edition would end after the August 31 issue, citing market conditions and the group's push toward full digitalisation; its digital platforms, it said, would keep running as normal. Sky Post announced its own print closure in the same week.
The digital-only pivot lasted ten months. On June 21, 2024, Hong Kong Economic Times Group shut down U Magazine's online platform as well and laid off its entire remaining staff, ending the 19-year-old brand outright — the digital transformation the print closure had been justified by never produced a platform worth running on its own.
Why it happened
- Framing the 2023 print closure as a digital transformation set an implicit bar the digital platform then had to clear alone — and it did not, within ten months.
- Closing print first removed the revenue and staff that might have funded a real digital build-out, leaving the platform to prove itself with fewer resources than print had provided.
- Two mastheads from the same publisher, Sky Post and U Magazine, folded within the same week in 2023, suggesting a portfolio-wide retreat rather than a fix aimed specifically at U Magazine.
The lesson
Calling a closure a 'digital transformation' doesn't create the digital audience — it only delays the closure announcement and leaves the digital platform with fewer resources than print had.
Aftermath
Hong Kong Economic Times Group's media business continued to report pressure on publishing income, with the group's results around the same period leaning on a property-sale gain rather than publishing revenue. No successor title replaced U Magazine in the group's portfolio.
Sources
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