Tough business

The UAE is a regional business center, UAE companies make the international news, the country needs a daily business paper. This appears to be the logic behind Arab Media Group’s relaunch of its Emirates Today title to Emirates Business 24/7. The new paper debuted on Sunday 9 December with the publisher confident it will become “an integral part of the life of top executives and decision-makers in the private and public sectors as well as a reference for investors”.

Good luck to them. Given the difficulties in securing a license to print new newspapers (and ITP’s inability to launch a daily business title), Business 24/7 could be a spoiler from AMG – ‘if we can’t crack the market with a general newspaper, we’ll pioneer the business daily sector’.

The first edition certainly boasts a clean, contemporary design (though the 24/7 tag is a little naff – and international business people might wonder why the phones aren’t answered on Fridays), but it will live and die on its content.

Issue one has some decent stuff – strong views from the local business community on the dollar peg, Al Qudra IPO details, water transport plans – but too much of is generic filler. How many times can it rehash a dollar peg/sovereign fund/forthcoming IPO feature? These are fine for weekend supplements, or monthly titles, but not so good for news-led daily papers. There is nothing to shock share prices or embarrass CEOs. Business people don’t make decisions based on happy-clappy feel-good pieces.

In its favor Business 24/7 at least now has a clear positioning (Emirates Today was defined by what it wasn’t, rather than what it was), and AMG’s government ties should ensure access to heavyweight players. Most people are in the UAE to work; business matters. Business 24/7 must avoid becoming an irrelevance.