World: ABRS Analysis - Asian titles ride out recession and remain buoyant.(Australian Biological Resources Study )

BusinessWeek, Forbes and IHT enjoy the biggest ABRS increases, Lucy Aitken says.

Despite being avid internet users and famed for their early adoption of the latest hi-tech gadgets, those in Asia's high-powered management elite reveal strong ties to ink on paper.

In the face of the hefty challenges presented by global economic recession and Sars, the readership of international media titles has hardly waned among Asia's heavyweight earners. This was the principal message from the latest Asian Business Readership Survey figures, published by Ipsos-RSL.

International media owners will have been breathing a collective sigh of relief: along with its media owner sponsors, Ipsos-RSL took the decision last year to delay ABRS by six months, anticipating improved market conditions.

The delay appears to have paid off.

The previous ABRS, published in October 2001, characterised a growing internationalism and a buoyancy in Asia: the fieldwork had been done before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and before the impact of the dotcom implosion had been felt. Yet as if portentous, just weeks after ABRS 2001 was published, Time Inc shut down its dedicated panregional title, Asiaweek, hot on the heels of its costly relaunch.

Two-and-a-half years later, Time Asia seems to be compensating for the loss: the title scored the highest average issue readership: 41,888, (18 per cent of the 234,000 sample).