Gonzales, Carissa
Mendiola, Pamela
Address: Raul L. Locsin Building I95 Balete Drive Extension,
New Manila, Quezon City,1112 Philippines
Website: http://www.bworldonline.com/
Trunkline: (632) 535-9901
Extensions: 706 to 711
Direct line: (632) 5359923
Fax: (632) 5359926
HISTORY
The newspaper with a working goal of "competent and responsible reporting of the news" first published on February 27, 1967 and was first called BUSINESSDAY. The man behind its success is Raul L. Locsin who functions as the publisher, president and editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
Businessday came to be known for its trustworthiness, equality and honour in its field. It was also coined as the first business daily in Southeast Asia. During this time, the newspaper was expanding its production to be at par with the fast growing business industry in our country
As proof to its integrity and stability over time, the newspaper was able to survive two events that threatened its production and a possible complete close down. The first blow was during Martial Law when all were commanded to stop publishing unless approved by the government. A labour problem within the company was the second threat and also made the close down on June 5, 1987 inevitable. After less than a month, the employees got together to revive the newspaper and they gave it a new name—Business World. Together with its revival was the computerization of their whole production process.
This advancement helped them to distribute and publish copies to more places. They publish an average of 54000 copies and is in circulation for six days in a week, Sunday being the only day they don’t put out copies. They have foreign and local circulation and an online exclusive during Saturdays. Also, Business World was fourth among all the broadsheets in the country when it comes to advertising revenues.
In 1991, BusinessWorld partnered with a private printing subsidiary which is called World Press, Inc. In the year 1994, the company transferred to their new office in New Manila, Quezon City. In 1995, it launched it’s on line publication and is actually one of the firsts in East Asia and first in the country.
As proof that the newspaper has fully grown and revived itself, it was able to make successful their other products such as the annual BusinessWorld Top 1000 Corporations in the Philippines, the monthly BusinessWorld Files and luxury consumer monthly magazine, BusinessWorld High Life.
The Business World newspaper does not have an Editor-in-Chief since according to Mr. Belleza, they do not need one. All the employees multi-task, and do their work accordingly and properly. Though, they do have a President and a CEO. Their Editorial Board is composed of the Chairman (Vergel O. Santos), Executive Editor (Arnold E. Belleza), Managing Editor (Wilfredo G. Reyes), City Editor (Cris V. Paraso), Associate Editors (Alicia A. Herrera and Norman P. Aquino), Foreign News Editor (Francisco P. Baltazar), and Sub-Editors (Felipe F. Salvosa and Raoul J. Chee Kee).
At present, they more or less have 17 reporters. With other newspapers, their average number of reporters is 27, but with them, they have never met this and are not really desperate to do so. The greatest number of reporters they have reached is 24. This is the case because explicitly, Business World is a newspaper that largely contains business matters. Its main and central concern is to write and disseminate information/data about business issues. Its agenda and content circulates on the business-economic dynamics and events internationally. Their target readers are those who are in the corporate sphere, and based on their surveys, they are absolutely the ones who consume their product (bankers, CEOs, executives, and the like). So given this fact, they do not need many reporters because they only focus on very few topics.
With regards to their correspondents, they have got several of them. Obviously, these correspondents are located across the whole nation. They work and submit their articles from and about the different corners of the country (and even of the globe). Some of them are in various places in Visayas and in Mindanao.
Upon asking Mr. Arnold Belleza about the number of columnists who work for them, he responded that they “actually have a lot” of the said writers. They range from 20-25, and are not limited to doing the opinion page alone. On the average, there are five columnists working on opinion page per day daily. Some have to double up or write more than once in a week, and some appear only twice a month. The newspaper also has columns on other sections.
The columnists in this renowned newspaper are actually “light-weight names” compared to other newspapers. The “heaviest name” to be considered in terms of popularity would be Solita Monsod. She is actually their no. 1 columnist according to the readership surveys.
For the company’s sake and preservation, it does not allow and tolerate government officials to work and write for the newspaper. This is so because they believe that there is going to be a great possibility for an obvious and nasty clashing of interests among the workers themselves. As Mr. Belleza had said, columnists can write about issues, but not about issues intruding their own business or corporations. If you are a government official, more often than not, what you are writing about would be something related to your work, aside from the fact that it normally leads itself to propaganda. They had certain columnists who were appointed by Pres. Gloria Arroyo, and the company did not remind them for actually already being an “unallowable” and “intolerable” employee in the workplace. The appointees themselves had the initiative to volunteer for resignation from the company.
Emphasizing on the great number of their columnists, Mr. Belleza had stated that one of their difficult columns is the one called The View From Taft because they have a rotating line-up of 20 writers and sometimes, a columnist’s name only comes up in the newspaper twice a year.
They do have or are open to “guest” columnists as long as there is available space, and they also have a column for the reporters.
Payment to columnists is small in amount, but most of them do not mind this since they experience a different level of happiness and contentment in just seeing their name printed at the bottom of their article in the newspaper. Some of them also do not really need the money for they are already financially stable and “overly-packed”. They are simply columnists because of their passionate urge to write (mostly about current events, features and sports) and their belief in them being there in that position to serve a higher purpose.
Business world, like most newspapers, is powered by advertising. Their profit on sales alone would not suffice foe their expenses. The newspaper charges P 25.00 per copy of the newspaper. Given this, it is obvious that revenues from a massive production would still not be able to take into the expense of the company. This is where advertisers come in. They pay the newspapers to post their ads on certain sections and in certain sizes. This fee adds up to the accounts receivable of the company and fills the expenses.
The advertising rate differs from the size and color of the ads. Below is the link of table that would show the different rates of the paper.
http://www.bworldonline.com/assets/includes/advertising4.html
Business World sees itself as a high-end newspaper. This view is associated to the doings of the founder Mr. Locsin. He is an Ilonggo and Ilonggos has a nature of being proud. Mr. Locsin, being the Ilonggo that he is, prides his company of only “high-class” materials. This consequently influenced the image of the paper and its advertisers. It only advertises merchandises that would under luxury or classy. Specifically, the paper advertises cars, real estates, watches, signature clothes and others but remote to ads of soaps, dishwashing liquid, wash detergents and the like. At present, Business World’s no. 1 advertisers are the automobile companies followed by real-estate. This makes sense with regards with their target market. The paper views itself as catering to the needs of businessmen, CEOs, company executives or owners and other high-ranking company officers. Initially, the paper only directs their attention to the power of the male sex. However, as time passes, they begin to change perspectives and include the possibility of female readers. Accordingly, there is an increase in the readership of females than of males. This consequently affected the paper’s advertising. Before it is limited to automobiles, real-estates and the like, but as a result of the increase in the female readership, the paper opened itself to other products advertisements that would cater to their new market.
At present, Business World's no. 1 competitor is Business Mirror. Above, much have been said about the paper and its roots. Many tried to overpower it but alas, Business World remains in the Top 4 among others. Also, in average, the company prints 65,000 copies per day. We failed to know more on Printing productions because the interview was untimely. According to MR. Belleza, friday for them is a dead day and everyone is out.
Pictures and videos are available at:
http://mpzmendiola.multiply.com/photos/album/58/Bussiness_World
http://coocarissa.multiply.com/video
http://coocarissa.multiply.com/photos/album/13/On_Location_Business_World_Office_in_Quezon_City
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