Young blood: Al Balad’s big debut

There’s a new newspaper in town and it’s in your face – television, billboards, vans, in other newspapers, sales people in the street, your doorstep, even the office. Al Balad’s marketing is aggressive; with start up costs of $6 million, its investors are not taking any chances, especially with a daily print run of 65,000 copies. “We have a very serious marketing plan and a very serious business plan, and it shows,” said Marwan Dimas, the newspaper’s general manager. “We think there is room in Lebanon for a new newspaper that has a different approach to news and it is clear that this is a serious newspaper, not just a bunch of people publishing anything.” One has to be a serious player – at least financially – in Lebanon, to set up a paper because it involves buying an existing state-set number of licenses, which cost several hundred thousand dollars.