Straits Times
Watershed change
Popular digital media is eroding a reliable ally that has
traditionally helped garner support for the government.
By Seah Chiang Nee, littlespeck.com
Oct 20, 2007
THE 162-year-old Straits Times has been giving ground to the
fast-speed digital media, drawing some advice from a concerned Lee
Kuan Yew on how it can fight back.
The editors are told: Dont compete on breaking the news; be first
with the background and the analysis. The ones with high
credibility will stay in business, Lee said.
This is the only way the print media in Singapore, which is
stagnating, could stay in the contest.
It is good advice, if they can or are allowed to carry it
out.
(In his National Day message, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said
Singapores newspapers were under siege from the digital
media.)
The elder Lee's comments came in a recent interview with a US
columnist on the spreading influence of the Internet on the worlds
newspaper readers.
But in the West where newspapers are in sharper decline, it is
regarded as an industry and technological shift, but in Singapore
it is something more.
For its leaders, it represents an erosion of a reliable long-time
ally that has traditionally helped to garner support for the
government.
In the past, Minister Mentor Lee had used state television and
controlled newspapers as a means to win hearts and minds against
the communists, race chauvinists and other enemies. Today, it
promotes his policies.
This hold is now loosening as young people turn more and more to
the faster and interactive news delivered by 24-hour TV channels
and Internet information and discussion sites.
This is gradually prying loose his partys hold onto its trusting
communicating link with his people.
The mainstream media is predictable and under control; the Internet
is not; it has a mind of its own and often promotes alternative, if
not opposing, views.
He is right to be concerned about the future for two
reasons.
First, the switch away from print to multimedia is likely to
accelerate as more people (currently about two-thirds of the
population) gain access to the Internet.
Second, the sales decline of the Straits Times is worse than
stagnant when measured against the recent surge in
population.
Last week, it reported that sales for the past year had fallen 0.8%
to 381,354 copies.
Despite its near market monopoly and Singapores increased use of
English, the downward trend over the years has been sharper when
calculated on a per capita basis.
Between 1998 and 2007, circulation fell by 2.7% even as the
population surged by a record 34%.
ST daily circulation per 100,000 people:
1998: 11,220 copies.
2007: 8,140 copies.
This is a per person drop of 17.5% but this has to take into
consideration that a segment of Singaporeans (albeit declining
significantly) read only Chinese and other vernacular papers.
Media observers say it could be much worse if the ST had to face an
erstwhile rival competing in the same market.
The government has protected its monopoly by not issuing a rival
publisher to compete in the broadsheet market that could threaten
its monopoly.
Despite the long-term threat, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)
which owns the ST and eight other newspapers is far from being a
sunset company.
Last week, it announced an 18.1% rise in annual profits, or
S$506.2mil (RM1.1bil), but with one-thirds (this was wrongly stated
as two-thirds in the Star report. Apologies) of revenue coming from
properties and other investments.
Non-newspapers will continue to fuel profits. Meanwhile, it plans
to guard its newspaper franchise by going multimedia and
regional.
The ground underneath SPH is shifting, so over the years the
company has resorted to selling assets to pay dividends, said
henryling, a stock market commentator.
It is not creating value but eating up value.
The digital threat has not come only from cable TV and the Internet
news sites.
A wide range of market analyses and institutional data that were
once released only through newspapers is now freely available
online.
This means people now do not need to depend on newspapers for
crucial information, said a blogger.
At one time, people would queue to buy an evening newspaper just to
find out the latest 4-D result.
Today, it is available free of charge with a click of the computer
mouse.
With a history of 162 years, the ST has experience and resources
and a depth of history that few institutions in Singapore possess.
It was launched in 1845, barely 26 years after Sir Stamford Raffles
landed on the island.
Its biggest strength lies in advertisement, especially classifieds,
and demand is soaring because of the current economic boom.
Being the only morning national gives it a virtual licence to print
money on advertisements; when markets are active, the money just
rolls in.
Even this strength is not without challenge from classified sites
like Craigslist Singapore, where sellers offer a wide range of
products.
Singaporeans can find online marketplaces for everything, ranging
from cars to property, from hobbies to jobs, said blogger
mrbrown.
This has prompted SPH to move into this small but rapidly growing
online classified business.
Will the Straits Times still be around 20 years from now? I believe
it will.
State icons dont die but it will probably take a different form as
it adopts new technology to deliver and explain the news.
A better delivery of content is part of the solution.
The crux as MM Lee suggested lies in re-adapting its editorial
priorities to write fast analyses of the news with
credibility.
That presupposes a freer hand to do so, something that could be
encouraged by a further relaxation of control on newspapers. But
thats another story.
so long as it is the only mainstream media, it can ignore all
challenges