Regaining readership
All the restructuring can’t win back young Singaporeans who give up reading newspapers. By Seah Chiang Nee
Sep 19, 2004

Behind the current painful restructuring, a large fundamental dilemma remains in Singapore – disappearing newspaper readers.

After years of stagnation, Singapore’s near-monopoly national daily is doing a revamp to lure back a significant portion of the young generation, which has given up on newspapers.

Declining sales are a global trend but aggravated by a special Singaporean condition.

The Straits Times - which just raised its cover price – has pledged to put on a fresh look from Oct 19 with three magazine supplements on weekdays and improvements of all its sections.

Started 159 years ago, the city’s only broadsheet has won regional awards for graphics and design in recent years, but has otherwise not done too well with its market advantage.

Actually, there’s nothing organically wrong with The Straits Times, which remains one of Asia’s top English-language newspapers. It has generally well written content with a superior foreign coverage.

It also performs a superlative role explaining government policies to the public.

But above all, it enjoys a benefit under law that other publishers can only dream about.

It is the only broadsheet daily in one of the world’s richest cities, with 4.25 million highly educated people.

During the past decade when the population jumped by a million or 30%, the newspaper's circulation rose by only 6.5% to 389,248 copies a day.

In fact sales dropped by 2.4% in 2001 and 0.5% in 2002. Worst of all was the decline in advertising revenue.

These were, of course, dismal economic years. Its sister paper, Business Times, fell by a steeper 12% in the past 18 months from 31,205 to 27,529 copies.

It also underwent revamp in an effort to look more exciting. The impact to sales has been negligible.

But declining readership is a trend almost everywhere, including the US and Europe, where young readers are turning to TV and Internet news and digital entertainment.

Only 35% penetration

Selling some 390,000 copies to a population of 4.25m people gives the Straits Times a penetration rate of only 35 per cent.

For the national paper, which enjoys a captive market, the ratio is pretty dismal.

One example: in Serangoon Gardens, a relatively well-off private estate, distributors told me they are delivering Straits Times only to 40% of the households.

Global trends don’t entirely explain its present strait. The major reason lies in the restrictive press laws and the editors’ excessive compliance to them.

Since independence, a whole new generation – more demanding, independent-minded and worldly-wise – has grown up wanting a freer press.

Many of them are cynical, demanding more serious choices while others want a more credible voice to air opposing views.

At a time of historical transformation, many aspects of life in Singapore are changing.

But the newspapers have hardly altered beyond improving journalistic design and writing style all these years.

One frequent complaint is that it plays up the good and downplays the bad (and opposition parties) to please the government.

Another is that they become outspoken and hard-hitting only when covering foreign news, shrinking back when it comes to similar domestic issues.

Today as I wrote this, the Sunday Paper carried an interview with a Malaysian teenage girl, who is no permanent resident in Singapore, who was picked to do Malaysia’s national service.

”Hot, humid, stupid,” proclaimed the paper in a front-page sub-headline that is bound to displease the Malaysians.

There’s nothing wrong being outspoken it also quotes Singaporeans similarly unhappy with their own national service.

Compliance can’t help new PM

A compliant media had helped Lee Kuan Yew turn Singapore into an advanced city because the people were then largely supportive. So credibility was less an issue.

In those days, the press merely had to carry the news since few readers were interested in any alternative view.

Now, faced with a different set of readers and problems, an obedient press may not be able to help Lee Hsien Loong succeed in the 21st Century. It has to help him persuade and convince.

One of Hsien Loong’s most serious challenges is to involve the youths in nation building and rid them of a boh chap (don’t care) attitude.

Another is to cut down migration of talent who complain of too much control.

The media cannot help the government if more youths turn away from newspapers or disbelieve what they say.

Worse still if more and more turn to the Internet, weblogs, e-lists and online forums that post news and information on virtually every subject a reader would want.

The reason: Some Internet sites throw up unreliable and motivated views that may mislead youths.

It is not possible for the press to stay the same when everything else is changing.

In most public debates on controversial issues, the media is not noted for taking the initiative. Instead it plays a passive role of reinforcing the official line.

Even letters and its own online forums are so heavily censored that an outside watchdog site regularly posts letters that The Straits Times has rejected.

In fact, more alternative views are emerging from government backbenchers in Parliament than from newspaper columnists.

Other trendsetters are politicians, academics, think-tank researchers and a few serious online letter writers.

While mature readers want a less compliant press, few of them actually want it to behave like its US counterpart in promoting an antagonistic counter-culture.

Rallying behind the nation and protecting national interests are basic fundamentals they would want the press to keep at all times.

Some years ago before he became Prime Minister, Hsien Loong said he was an admirer of the BBC brand of objective, accurate and balanced journalism.

In time to come, this may become a model here, but it will probably move only in tandem with political decontrol. One won’t happen without the other.
By Seah Chiang Nee