Tribune.com.pk
Tribune.com.pk has been one of the top news websites in Pakistan for a decade. Using the slogan ‘digital first’, it offers minute by minute ‘breaking news’ to its readers rather than just being a digital copy of the newspaper it is associated with. It is also the first Pakistani news website to use click-bait headlines and mix entertainment with current affairs.
The website has also been a pioneer in the use of multimedia in story-telling. Through its section called Tribune Lab, it has published stories that combine reported text with elaborate images, detailed infographics and audio/video contents.
Due to its focus on lifestyle, pop culture and news from international entertainment and technology industries, www.tribune.com.pk is one of the most popular news websites among the English-reading urban youth. According to third-party data, it was the sixth most visited website in Pakistan during 2018.
In terms of its editorial policy, the website is quite different from its associated newspaper. The latter follows the same middle of the road, market-driven and pro-establishment editorial policies that other Express Media Group publications have. It also often actively censors articles published in the international edition of The New York Times that it distributes in Pakistan. The former, on the other hand, has broken some social taboos over the years by providing coverage to such sensitive issues as minority rights, anti-blasphemy laws and women’s empowerment.
Audience Share
2.59%
Ownership Type
Private
Geographic Coverage
International
Content Type
Free Content
Media Companies / Groups
Express Media Group
Ownership Structure
www.tribune.com.pk is owned by Express Digital Private Limited, 33.33% shares of which are owned by Sultan Ali Lakhani. The remaining shares in the company are owned by Bilal Ali Lakhani (33.33%) and Aijaz-ul-Haque (33.33%) who is serving as a director in several Express Media Group companies.
Voting Rights
Missing Data
Individual Owner
Group / Individual Owner
Aijaz-ul-Haque
Aijaz-ul-Haque serves as a director in several of Express media and Lakson Group and companies. He is the Chief Operating Officer at Express Digital Private Limited and managing editor of Daily Express.
General Information
Founding Year
2010
Affiliated Interests Founder
born in 1948 in Gondia, a town in what is now India’s Maharashtra state. His family subsequently moved to Karachi where his father Hassanali Karabhai set up a business in 1954. Over time, this business would expand and become Lakson Group which is now one of the largest commercial and industrial conglomerates in Pakistan.
Sultan Ali Lakhani worked as the group’s chairman till 1988 and is serving as its advisor presently. He is also the chief executive officer of Express Media Group which is wholly owned by Lakson Group and includes Television Media Network Private Limited (that owns and runs some television channels including Express News and Express Entertainment), Express Publications Private Limited (which owns and runs Urdu language daily Express, English language daily Express Tribune and Sindhi language daily Sindh Express), and Express Digital Private Limited (which runs three major news websites – www.express.com.pk, www.express.pk and www.tribune.com.pk – among others).
Sultan Ali Lakhani has been serving as the honorary consul of Mexico in Pakistan since long. He dabbled in politics too and remained a member of Senate, the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament, between 1988 and 1994 as a representative of a center-right party, Pakistan Muslim League. He once also famously pleaded guilty of committing bank fraud after he was arrested in 2000 by the National Accountability Bureau and kept in detention for nine months.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
is the CEO of Express Media Group and of Lakson Group. See above for more.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
was already working as an editor in charge at daily Express Tribune in its central newsroom in Karachi when he became the newspaper’s, and its associated website’s, editor in June 2017.
He joined Express Tribune in 2010 after quitting Samaa News television channel where he worked as a senior copy editor for six months. Earlier, he worked as a senior copy editor at Dawn News television channel for two years, as a member of the editorial team of daily The News International for almost five years and as a sub-editor at daily Frontier Post in Peshawar for three years.
Affiliated Interests other important people
Sultan Ali Lakhani’s son. After studying at the prestigious Yale School of Management in the United States, he started his publishing career with the publication of Express Tribune, an English language daily, and its associated website, www.tribune.com.pk, in 2010.
The publications Bilal Ali Lakhani started have changed Pakistan’s news space in more ways than one. For instance, Express Tribune focuses as much on contents as it does on layout and design -- unlike other content-centered newspapers existing at the time of its launch. Colorful layouts, attractive images and eye-catching infographics have become its hallmark, forcing many older newspapers to imitate it. It is also the first Pakistani newspaper published simultaneously in two formats – print and online.
This striking packaging of news contents and the provision of two formats concurrently did not go unnoticed by the readers. The two publications immediately won a large number of mostly young readers in urban areas.
In another first, Bilal Ali Lakhani secured a deal with the New York Times to distribute its international edition in Pakistan along with the copies of Express Tribune. Many English newspaper readers would soon switch from other publications to Express Tribune merely because it delivered the globe’s newspaper of record at their doorstep and allowed them get two newspapers almost in the price of one.
was the founding editor of both daily Express Tribune and its website www.tribune.com.pk. A seasoned journalist, he has also worked with various other newspapers – including daily Dawn and The News International – since the early 1990s. A graduate of London School of Economics, he now serves as the director of Centre of Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), a public sector institution of higher learning in Karachi.
A foreign-educated information technology expert, he was the founding web editor at Express Tribune. In 2014, he joined Dawn Media Group as its chief digital strategist and the editor of its website, Dawn.com. He has also worked as a content coordinator for the same group’s television channel, Dawn News, between 2008 and 2010 and as a copy editor for Geo TV Network in 2007-08.
Contact
The Express Tribune Office
5 Expressway, Off Korangi road
Karachi, 75500
Tel.: +92 (0)-21-358-000-51; +92-21-358-000-58
Fax: +92(0) -21-35800050
Website: tribune.com.pk
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
USD 1.66 Million / PKR 186.56 Million
Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
USD 0.63 Million / PKR 71.28 Million
Advertising (in % of total funding)
USD 1.66 Million / PKR 186.56 Million (100%)
Market Share
Missing Data
Further Information
Meta Data
The outlet was sent information request on 15 January 2019 through a courier company as well as by email. It did not respond even after a reminder was couriered on 1st February 2019 and emailed on 4 February 2019. No verified online information is available about its ownership structure and its financial status. #
The financial information used in this media outlet profile has been obtained from a report that Express Digital Private Limited submitted to the SECP about the financial year that started on July 2017 and ended on June 30, 2018. An average exchange rate (112.43) of the Central Bank of Pakistan for 2017-2018 was used to convert PKR into USD.
The revenue and profit mentioned above also pertain to the whole of Express Digital Private Limited (which also owns some other news websites) and not to www.tribune.com.pk alone.
An Interview was conducted with Naveed Hussain through phone on 25 March 2019.
