BANGKOK — For decades, English- speaking Asians and expatriates with a thirst for Asian news relied on The Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek to keep abreast of what was going on behind the scenes in the region.

The Far Eastern Economic Review ended its life as a weekly newsmagazine in October 2004; Asiaweek died in December 2001. Both were full-color weeklies with highly regarded networks of correspondents across Asia.

A host of new English-language media outlets has sprung up around Asia in recent years to try to fill the void. But analysts say none of the new publications, which range from political Web sites focused on individual countries to broad-based regional magazines, has yet found the formula for success. As a result, they say, a highly literate and sophisticated market across East Asia remains ill served.

Today, international dailies like the International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times and The Asian Wall Street Journal serve the region - as do a number of local English-language publications. But many readers say they miss the behind-the-scenes accounts of Asian politics and business intelligence that were staples of The Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek.

Some of that in-depth coverage can be found on specialist Web sites that cover issues from human rights in Myanmar to the media in Indonesia, or a few publications whose aim is to provide broad regional coverage.

One of the most prominent of the regional publications is Asia Times Online, the Internet version of a newspaper of the same name that closed after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. Asia Times is owned by Sondhi Limthongkul, the publisher of ThaiDay, an English-language supplement distributed with the International Herald Tribune in its Thailand editions.

"We're now bolstering East Asian coverage and have a view to filling the vacuum left by the death of some traditional media in the region," said Shawn Crispin, Southeast Asia editor at Asia Times. "We feel we're more viable partly because we have no distribution costs, no bureau, we're leaner, and we're expanding."

Another recent entrant is Asia News Network, an Internet site that also has a weekly print edition.

It is unlikely that any of these new publications - which are free - are making money, analysts said. Some exist on handouts from nongovernmental organizations, while others - like Asia Times - seek profitability through ads.

Despite all of these efforts, many readers are unimpressed.

"A lot of the media nowadays is lousy because no one is prepared to invest in reporting, to let a journalist really investigate something for a month or whatever it takes," said Mark Decker, director of institutional equities at Siam Commercial Bank Securities in Bangkok.

"It's not worth my while to go through all the papers to find the occasional article about Thailand that's useful," he said.

The owners of The Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek - Dow Jones and Time Warner, respectively - blame an advertising slump for the troubles of the two magazines. Many readers, however, felt that the publications, both of which were long based in Hong Kong, had lost their vitality after being bought by U.S. media companies. The Far Eastern Economic Review still exists in name as a Dow Jones publication, but it has been transformed into a monthly along the lines of the bimonthly magazine Foreign Affairs.

"Asiaweek before used to be rich in regional texture," said Marites Vitug, editor of Newsbreak, a Filipino magazine, "Same with the FEER," referring to The Far Eastern Economic Review. "Then they became 'globalized.' They became uniform, with a voice that no longer was ours."

Asia News Network, which combines articles from 14 Asian newspapers, is one publication that says it speaks with an Asian voice. A skeleton, rotating crew of editors from the various newspapers in Bangkok maintains the Web site, produces a daily newsletter and publishes a weekly magazine, AsiaNews, which made its debut Feb. 10.

"Our idea is to reflect the diversity of Asia and to focus on pan-Asian issues, so the magazine is trying to bring out an understanding of certain common interests of Asian people," said Pana Janviroj, executive director of Asia News Network and president of The Nation newspaper in Bangkok. "Our members cover daily news more intimately, which has its good and bad points. If you want to get into it, it's there."