(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai pleaded for help for his flagship newspaper the Apple Daily, as advertising income slumps to almost nothing due to political retaliation and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The paper, part of Lai’s Next Digital Ltd., has championed the city’s months of protest against Beijing’s tightening grip and faces substantial losses and a decline in subscriptions, the tycoon said in a video statement Wednesday.

Its number of subscribers has dropped to below 600,000 from 800,000, he said, adding he had personally poured in about HK$550 million ($71 million) to keep the publication going.

“Losses have been very serious these years and it’s worse than before,” Lai said. “We really hope you can understand how tough and difficult it is, help and support us with subscriptions so that we can keep going.”

Lai, 72, has long been denounced as a traitor by Chinese state media and was named as one of the city’s “Gang of Four” behind protests that erupted last year in opposition to legislation that would allow the transfer of criminal suspects to the mainland. He has been arrested multiple times on different charges, including on suspicion of participating in unauthorized assemblies. He was among 15 prominent activists arrested by Hong Kong authorities last Saturday.

Outspoken Paper

Apple Daily, founded in 1995, has been one of the Asian financial hub’s best-selling newspapers and known for being outspoken against Beijing and the Hong Kong government. Its average daily net circulation fell to about 91,000 copies between April and September of 2019, as the paper shifted its focus to developing its digital platform.

The publication had average monthly page views of about 1.3 billion for all of its platforms in Hong Kong and Taiwan combined during the same period.

With advertisers worldwide slashing their budgets, Apple Daily’s peers in Hong Kong have also taken a hit. The South China Morning Post, a newspaper backed by Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said Wednesday that it’s cutting top executives’ pay and asking some staff to take unpaid leave.

Hong Kong plunged seven places to 80th in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, released Tuesday. The city was ranked 18th when the organization created the tracker in 2002. The poor treatment of reporters by the authorities during the protests last year was among the reasons cited for the decline.

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