Singapore Government Press Release
Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts,
MITA Building, 140 Hill Street, 2^nd Storey, Singapore 179369
Tel: 837-9666

I am happy to join you this morning to launch the Newspaper Asia 2001 Conference. Let me also extend a warm welcome to all participants especially those from overseas. Some of you may be visiting Singapore for the first time. I do hope that besides your deliberations over the next few days, you will find time to savour the sights and sounds of our island nation and that you will leave Singapore with pleasant memories.

Some 600 years ago, a German pressman Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type, thereby creating the first media revolution. It was, according to many historians, the very first form of mass production. Today we are witnessing yet another media revolution brought about by the tremendous advances in Information Technology and mass communications. The omnipresence of the media and the real-time velocity with which information is now conveyed have become the key characteristics defining the new media environment.

Every time a new medium comes along, the soothsayers have been quick to announce the death of the newspaper. Some 30 years ago, Canadian philosopher McLuhan announced boldly that the print media would soon disappear from the face of the earth, driven out by an all-pervasive television medium. Yet newspapers are still very much with us. Newspapers have survived the radio and the immense appeal of television.

Despite some painful experience in recent years of declining sales and advertising revenue, financially the industry appears to be still expanding. The annual World Trends 2000 survey by the World Association of Newspapers suggests that newspaper sales and advertising revenues are on the rise in many countries, with global newspaper advertising revenues showing an increase of 19% in 1999 over their highs in 1987. This figure is expected to exceed 20% in 2000. Last year was another growth year for the industry. Many newspapers have also taken advantage of the potential opened up by electronic media and web-sites to protect their revenue and build competitive advantage.

Advertising revenues have grown largely because overall spending on advertising has been growing. The newspapers' share of it, however, has been shrinking. Circulation figures are still reportedly declining in a number of newspapers worldwide and demographics of newspaper reading show that the young read newspapers a lot less than the old and middle-aged.

Competition is at the heart of the problem - not just from new media but in a more general sense, from competition for people's attention or for eyeballs, as many would have put it during the height of the internet fever. Over the past decade, technology and market forces have created many more ways of occupying people's leisure hours: more TV channels on cable and via satellites, more magazines, more tabloids, video games, chatrooms, theme parks and all the wonders of the digital age.

A quick survey of lifestyles of young Singaporeans undertaken by my Ministry in late 1999 showed that they were spending an increasing amount of time consuming the newer media like surfing the Net, e-mailing and playing computer games. These findings are consistent with similar studies in the US and elsewhere. A most recent survey by NetValue, a global Internet measurement company, ranked Singapore as having the highest Net penetration in East Asia. The most Net-active age group here is the 15 to 24 range. Singaporean users tend to be younger than in most other countries, with the government pushing the widespread use of computers in schools.

In recent years, newspaper companies have been anxiously, or eagerly, positioning themselves on the Internet to keep up with the new medium and seek out its potential. Today most major newspapers are available online. Some ventured into Internet after much hesitation, fearful that it might cannibalise their existing products. Others felt that they had no choice.

Over the past year, the Internet has often not delivered on its promise of slashing costs and boosting revenues. Many new media companies that have set themselves up on the Internet have found the pace difficult or have folded up. The difficulty has been that whilst there is demand, getting people to pay for content is difficult. Advertising revenue is also drying up.

Nonetheless some of the products of the media business evidently do work on the Internet - especially those that are time-sensitive. Thus news flourishes on the Net and some of the major news organizations maintain a key presence on the Net. With the information explosion, the demand for well-researched and well-written news and analysis is likely to increase.

Information technology is rapidly transforming the media scene and cutting across national boundaries. Neat and clear-cut segmentation between national and international media is no longer possible. In Singapore, the media market is small and fragmented by race and language. It is unique in many ways and cannot be compared readily with other media environments, even with another small market like Hong Kong.

As many of you may be aware, Singapore has recently restructured its media industry to help position the local media so that they remain relevant to Singaporeans and stay the prime source of information and entertainment for the local audience. The restructuring introduces some competition to stretch local newspapers and broadcasters, and opens avenues for them to establish themselves across platforms by exploiting emerging technologies. It will help them to harness the benefits of growing convergence between print and broadcast media and telecommunications and IT. We hope to nurture a dynamic domestic media environment which is able and ready to compete with international media, whilst at the same time providing a Singaporean perspective in the analysis of what is happening in Singapore, the region and the world at large. We want to ensure that no one is deprived of any news or information that he may need. At the same time, it is important also that in the midst of all the cacophony a Singaporean point of view also gets across to our local audience.

We cannot know for certain how the future media industry will evolve or what the consumers want or are prepared to pay for. The approach we have chosen to take is not to over-prescribe but to leave ample room for the market to play. The objective of our reforms is to strengthen our local media so that they are better able to compete both locally and abroad.

Media Watch

Intense competition has added a certain buzz and dynamism to the domestic media environment. Many more Singaporeans appear to be reading the newspapers and especially the new tabloids - you can see this phenomenon every morning with commuters on the trains and school children diligently carrying their morning papers with their school bags. However, intense competition has also prompted the recent debate in Parliament and in the press on the need to uphold standards in the print and broadcast media and some calls for a so-called "neutral watchdog" to monitor the media here. Recently, there have been reports of a group of Singaporeans getting together and announcing their plans to establish a MediaWatch Community. It remains to be seen whether the plan will take shape and achieve credibility with the public.

With the recent liberalisation, the media scene in Singapore is still unfolding. Two new ‘free-to-air’ television channels are scheduled to be launched later this year as well as two repackaged radio channels. These are efforts by the dominant newspaper company, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) to venture into broadcasting in direct competition for advertising revenue with the dominant broadcaster, MediaCorp Singapore (MCS). In November last year MCS started distributing a free tabloid called ‘Today’ at MRT stations to compete for print advertisements.

With the media competition getting more intense, it is unavoidable that the players will try harder to cater to the needs and interests of their customers and to attract their attention and following. The public are naturally concerned that the media should uphold high standards of professionalism and integrity. The media have assured us that they have been exercising self-regulation. This is crucial as without self-discipline by the media to maintain credibility and high standards, it is difficult for the public, whether as individuals or small groups, to make a difference. This is more so if groups are set up which have their own agendas to push for.

So far, apart from occasional lapses, the media standards appear to have been maintained. The public have generally welcomed the greater variety of views and media. My Ministry is closely monitoring the situation. We are assisted by various advisory committees for broadcasting, publications and internet. These committees are composed of individuals from a wide cross-section of society to reflect public opinion.

For newspapers and other publications, there is a Publications Advisory Committee (PAC) which was first set up in 1982. It comprises 75 concerned citizens from a broad spectrum of the community. The committee has been relatively less active than the others as there have been few complaints from readers. I intend to activate the PAC to monitor the newspapers more closely and to report regularly on trends in reporting. The public are welcome to send their views to the PAC, to my Ministry or to the newspapers directly.

Ultimately the local media will find their respective places in the economy catering to their own market segments. They naturally do not wish to have pressure groups telling them what to do. However, the media need to show by their actions that they uphold high standards of journalism and civic responsibility so that they can earn the trust and confidence of the public at large. The main newspapers and broadcasters especially should continue to focus on issues of importance to Singaporeans, whilst striving to be more attractive to their customers.

Conclusion

You are meeting at an exciting time when rapid advances in IT and info-communications are transforming the way information is delivered and accessed. Enormous sums have been bet on new technologies, some of which have yet to measure up to expectations in terms of customer acceptance and changes in lifestyle. Nevertheless the pace of change is relentless and likely to gather fresh momentum after a period of consolidation.

In Singapore we have been striving to keep abreast of these changes to gain competitive advantage by wiring up the whole country for broadband access and by promoting IT literacy amongst the general population. The local media scene has been liberalised and bears watching as it unfolds.

With this conducive setting, I hope you will have much food for thought. May I wish you a successful and enjoyable conference.

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