Media shakeup
Singaporeans react
Shareholders celebrate, but what do man-in-the-street and journalists think. A cross section of online views.
Sep 18, 2004

soc.culture.singapore
kilometric
It seems both SPH and MediaCorp have enough of competition and want to go back to their orignal businesses. SPH will go back to their newspaper publishing and MediaCorp TV broadcasting.

Dr G H Tan
If this is the case, then it is sign of 'Back to Basics' and the economy is not growing as we are told by the newspapers.
If growing, then why they need to do that? Then they are actually lying to us about the news the report without verifying about economical growth.

Goh Meng Seng
It may be more of a political considerations rather than an economical one.

LauNiu
It is the same like the bus and taxi services and higher education in Singapore.
From 10 bus companies into one, then break up again. Two universities, then one NUS, then NTU, then SMU, then many more overseas university branches here.

Didadi
If TV even cannot survive I think it is obvious the economy is not moving. If SMRT sold their shares away of their newspapers and if Singtel sold their share back to Mediacorp, then it clearly says it is not profitable as they was lack of interest from readers.
As it stands, TV media is a powerful medium to capture large audience and thus TV media relies largely on advertisements to support most of their operational costs.
In addition. a lot of imported programmes can be expensive and thus raises the price on advertisements. If they're enough of advertisers and who are rich enough to sustain their advertisements, or that the price of advertisements is affordable to advertisers, there should not be any problem.
If advertisers that put in so much money on advertising and yet did not recover much from its sales, it goes to show that the retail market is pretty bad - in that it is slow as customers avoid spending.

Hardwarezone
Tankee531
Back to one big family

Bolts
We do not have truly free competition here. When PM Lee say an "open and inclusive" society, free market media industry competition is not part of that.

Kozinga
Actually, this 'failure' poses a large question whether the local market could really sustain another free-to-air station/paper even if the Government really opens up the market.
If a Government linked company like SPH could throw in the towel, what then a privately run free-to-air company?

AzurasAO
Just a question of when the same thing will happen to SMRT, etc. Artificial "competition" when they were prevented from really competing by being forced to serve difference transport routes....

Jan175
CH I will probably be scrapped. Couldn't help but notice the newscasters weren't even smiling when they delivered the news.

Xoras
Haha now Kym Ng can go back and kick her dear friend Sharon Au from her pedestal...
Does the merger mean the end of Taiwanese variety shows n hk serials?? We all know that Mediacorp likes to show really outdated Taiwanese variety shows n lousy local-made dramas which is always about family. darn it man, I like my Channel U!!!
Actually i think it's not really that good a deal for SPH. With Channel U, it actually had close to 50% of the Chinese audience, while Mediacorp's Today isn't making a dent anywhere, except to Streats.
If SPH is willing to sell off so much of its stake in its TV operations, then it's highly probable that the TV business must be losing a tremendous amt of money.
Channel I will definitely be closed down. I'm not sure if they'll cut down on the HK programming n Taiwanese variety shows.

Xoras
The miniscule amounts of money involved certainly seems ridiculous. SPH paying only $10m for its 20% stake?? Mediacorp Press' 40% stake worth $19m n more than the 20% stake in the Combined TV operations of both companies????
I certainly think that the TV operations should be valued at a far higher price than such negligble sums of money, even if loss-making.

IceRed
(Some forumers appear to be staff of either or both media companies. Their posts reflect their anxiety.)

Sad journo
I would miss Ch I news and Michelle Quah. It was fantastic, catering to the younger demographics. CNA or Ch 5 news is a boring alternative.

Really!!
Channel u transfer to TCS within 3 mths. There goes our already poor TV programmes!!!

Insider
MediaCorp to downsize by 30 percent. All this to happen of the next 6 to 12 months.

Communication
Really...back to one body monopolising the small screens. I wonder when the Telcos in S'pore would surrender and let the one and only who was monopolising do it all over again...I hate it when there isn't competition.

Irony
and it's Streats 3rd birthday party today. Wonder what are they celebrating?

Overhead
Anyways, heard the new head of the channel i news team, pat daniel, told his people to be prepared for the worst.
3 staff have resigned this week! and they are all the senior ang moh staff there! 1 of them is even going over to ESPN!
Channel i only has less than 20 full time staff so 3 staff leaving at once is quite significant, ok? would you want to stay on a sinking ship?

Not fair
I think it's very sad for the SPH artistes who have jumped ship from Mediacorps. If Mediaworks closes down, that's it for them. I think SPH shouldn't even think about closing down Mediaworks. It'll lead to a very sad state of affairs for the local arts scene.

Chomperz
Senior staff leaving or resigning isn't something new. Former CEO of Ch i left a while ago and so did pple like Melvin Ang who rejoined Mediacorp. Tons of people from MW (MediaWorks) be it in Production, Sales or Programming/Promo has left or jumped ship too. Rumours were rampant then that Ch i or even MW would close down or merge with MCS (MediaCorps) then. But it didn't happen. Point is..what you'd point out (as prove that you REALLY have insider news) doesn't mean that the station is a goner.
Anyway, both media companies are bleeding. Distributors are enjoying the competition because they are able to up the pricing for their products and create a bidding war for most of the acquired products..And the tv viewers definitely benefit from this as we get to watch so many good programmes on terrestrial tv.

Contoh:
The point i was trying to make is the fact that joe averages like all of us will be the biggest losers if the media industry goes back to its status quo.
yeah two free sheets will be reduced to one

Overheard
contoh: Know what you mean by that. lotsa them in mediaworks and the two channel news teams.
From the lowest journos to the highest anchors, these pple must be quaking in their boots and wishing they'd been a little nicer to pple around them now!
guess payback time's on the cards for some of them now that their days are numbered!

Contoh
Yeah it applies to the 2 free sheet too

Overheard
It has begun. They have started asking a few of their reporters whether they want to go over to ST print.

Ringlord
Is dearest ling ling among one of them who offered a position in ST? this station's doomed.
Overheard
No. she's been pulling strings and using contacts to get into CNN, CNBC or some other station. why? you'll miss her ah?

Bulllah
Stupid la you all. Heard from sources that only temp folks are being asked to go to print first. Apparently, all the perm staff were told they'd be pulled into the paper

Seriously
What about the 'other' non-editorial staff at ch i news? what happens to the producers and directors?

Inside
Goners. all of them. the whole station is folding- channel u and i

What?
They got temp staff meh? like who? thought they were all full timers...

To inside
U Sure about that? where u hear from?

Themainman
It's OFFICIAL.
There will be a merger between mediaworks and mediacorp three months from now.
The head of channel i news, jl, was overheard telling her staff over lunch that they should start making plans.
All hail the resumption of the media status quo in singapore!

SAMMYBOY
WalterZenga
I'm saddened by this announcement.. What happened to our liberalisation of media + eradicating of media monopoly?? Why???
I tink the ultimate losers are us, the readers... just when i tot Today is an independent paper, now ..... sigh...

Swingstar46
This has less to do with politics than pure commercial common sense. Mediaworks, even with their Chinese channel..has been bleeding big bucks from day One. It never turned a profit. SPH is unwilling to pump good money after bad. The Singapore domestic market is simply too small for another TV media player. TCS has cornered all the best syndicated English and Chinese programs, and have a more established Chinese drama production setup. It is foolish to carry on this way...SPH realises that it should stick to the printed media while Mediacorp has wasted its resources trying to set up a rival paper.
Now good sense has returned..and we can be expecting better programming and more entertainment with the improved synergy and economies of scale.
All this independent media..alternative viewpoints crap ..are concepts that Singapore is just not ready for..yet

mubira 06:15
precisely kill 2 birds with one stone....
profitability goes back to shareholders ...
broadcasting hub....merger leads to retrenchments ..
y the creation of 2 media local companies if they do their sum
in the first place...
wastage of millions ............
resulted in more unemployed.......
resulted in laughing stock in south east asia...
same time back to square one...

UTongLoong
It's doomed to fail at the word "GO" with the local MediaCock trying to compete for the same news to be printed in SG. It just show that such artificially created "rival" paper is impotent to whip up interest in our well-educated, analytical modern readers besides the fact that SG is too small a market to be commercially viable which u rightly pointed out.
But the reverse is not true. If a foreign media with its established presence in a big market, say USA will not face the same fate as MediaCock for obvious reasons. They have the financial muscle to make it happen here and when free of garmen control, will satisfy the news-hungry populace and also as a check on monopoly enjoy by ST which never fail to increase price when it is in the mood to do so.

SGForums
Heartlander
Years back some smart one has suggested that Singapore should have more than one TV station to compete and so that viewers have more choice and thereby produced efficiency and cut cost. SPH just jumped into the bandwagon and started mediaWork and has 2 Channels, chen. I&U without even conducting a survey to check the viability of such venture, it bleeds profusely year after year because of the tiny market Singapore provides!Similarly Media Corp ventures into the newprint arena by starting Today newspaper and its earning nosedived.Now they merged after seeing stars for so many years!
In Singapore those in power uttered anything as they like and the masses just followed without doing their homeworks and took their own stands. The same incident happened in the transport sector where someone has retorted that Singapore should have more bus and Taxi providers so that they could compete and bring down prices and enhanced efficiency,but before you see any result Comfort merged with Delgro to go back to square one, and lately due to economic downturn, more taxi companies are flooding the road with more taxis driven by some highly over qualified jobless retrenched workers, zooming in and out of all the lanes driving as if the roads belong to them!
Many new car parallel importers are in the same straits and only a few are still kicking!Will this happen to the telecommunication sector and many other sectors in Singapore?

shareinvestor
Streak88
Streats to merge into TODAY. May signal the end of 'free' newspaper that we are used to today. Good for the GLCs, good for their shareholders. Bad for consumers.
Mccool
Spokesman: "At this moment, we have no plans to discontinue the practice of giving TODAY away free to our loyal readers."
Fundollar
Today, two "old" monopolies re-emerged: SPH Press & Media Corp In the days to come, TODAY if still around, will no longer be free.
BUT before that happen, I hope new boss of TODAY will make some statements like "TODAY paper will forever be FREE" Some gahmen mans will be very happy,
coz in future less need to appear for so many interviews and will still getting better viewerships.
Right now, appear on 5+8, but viewers run to U+I
...re-appear on U+I, only to have viewers switching over to 5+8 !!!

Sgriver
I think he would say "Today's paper will forever be free, but Tomorrow no guarantee."
Sep 18, 2004