Riding the Asian Tiger.

The international business media withstood the crash in the tiger economies but is now finding it necessary to provide more local content to remain relevant. Tess Caven reports

On 3 July 1997, when the tyres finally blew out on the beleaguered Thai Baht, triggering the spectacular collapse of other bubble economies, even the sturdiest Asian Tigers were left licking their wounds from the aftershock.

If only the markets and governments had heeded the warnings of the international business press. As early as January 1997, The Asian Wall Street Journal had advised investors against making bullish moves in Thailand on account of its fragile economic infrastructure and, on 22 February, The Economist published the first detailed report into the inherent instability of the Thai miracle. As a coup de grace later that autumn, The Economist's 18 October front cover advised the global equity markets to "Crash, dammit!" and a week later they obeyed, taking with them many of the region's companies, family nest eggs and personal dreams.

Three years on and the region is generally more stable, if not yet roaring as confidently as it did in the good old days. However, fingers have been burned and the continuing growth of US and other western economies, together with enthusiasm for anything New Economy, has turned much of the regions' business focus outward to monitor foreign exchange market trends and indicators.

This would seem to be good news for the international media brands, which had already benefited (on a reader/viewer level, if not from solid revenue) from the business community's recognition of economic domino effects.

For despite the business closures, which eroded the subscription bases of many international businesstitles, between 1997 and 1999, the combined circulation of all key international business and news titles went up by nearly 10 per cent. For TV distribution, the story was much the same -- CNN's home access, for example, now stands at 22 million in Asia-Pacific, a 60 per cent increase over 1997.

Markets where People meter Data records cable viewing (Taiwan, India and some Chinese cities) show a rising trend in both reach and time spent viewing news and business channels. In Taiwan, this growth started as early as May 1997, when the first signs of trouble in its neighbours Korea, Indonesia and Thailand became apparent, and it appears to be sustained to date.