Update on Discussion with SPH Media Trust on Funding Support Measures to Ensure Sustainability in Competitive Media Industry and Limited Local Market

Ms Tin Pei Ling asked the Minister for Communications and Information whether the Ministry will require SPH Media Trust to have adequate emphasis on thought leadership content from Singapore’s perspective so as to increase Singapore’s mindshare on the global stage.

Mr Alex Yam asked the Minister for Communications and Information with the commitment of the Government to provide funding support to SPH Media Trust, how will the Ministry ensure that editorial independence continues to be upheld in the newsrooms.

Ms Hany Soh asked the Minister for Communications and Information what steps will the Ministry take to ensure that its funding support for SPH Media Trust will go towards the development of news media on online platforms that are engaging for younger audiences.

Ms Hany Soh asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) how will the Ministry ensure that the Singapore Media Academy and the planned SPH Media Academy differentiate themselves in terms of skillsets and avoid an overlap of functions; (b) whether the Ministry has a definite roadmap for SPH’s upcoming media academy to help achieve the goal of nurturing more local talent for the mass communications industry; and (c) whether a collaboration with SG Women In Tech will be considered to attract, retain and develop more female talent in the infocomm workforce.

Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) how will SPH Media Trust remain relevant and sustainable in a highly competitive media industry given digital disruption and declining demand for print news; (b) how can the quality of local journalism keep pace with global standards since audiences can easily access digital versions of international newspapers; and (c) what are the desired outcomes for SPH Media Trust and how will the Government track the progress.

Mr Sharael Taha asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) what will be done to ensure the viability of our vernacular news media, given their limited local market sizes; (b) how will the Ministry (i) ensure that our vernacular news media has enough resources, talent and technology to continue to produce good quality news and (ii) create opportunities for our vernacular news media to grow beyond Singapore readership; and (c) how does vernacular news media remain relevant, given the declining use of vernacular languages amongst our younger generations.

I will also provide more information for written Question No 50 in yesterday's Order Paper, which was filed by Miss Cheryl Chan.

In May last year, Singapore Press Holdings Limited announced the restructuring of its media business to a not-for-profit entity. The restructuring process is complete and the new SPH Media Trust, or SMT, shared its plans with the public about two weeks ago.

I thank Members for their questions. My reply is organised around three themes.

First, the need for Government support for SMT’s transformation; second, how transformation preserves trusted media for our citizens and serves the larger public interest; and third, how the Government will maintain accountability.

Ms Tin Pei Ling and Miss Cheryl Chan asked about the Government’s plans to support SMT.

MCI has worked closely with SMT to understand the challenges they face. In fact, readership and trust in SMT’s journalism continue to be high. Based on a survey last year, SMT’s weekly reach extends to almost 75% of Singaporeans. Three in four Singaporeans trust SMT to produce reliable news and content.

However, the global digital shift has severely disrupted print business models. Traditionally, they have relied heavily on advertising revenue to support quality journalism. But today, the proliferation of free news aggregators and user-generated content compete with newsrooms for eyeballs and, correspondingly, advertisers. Globally, print advertising revenue is declining 7% year-on-year. Although digital advertising revenue has increased, a large share of it goes to Big Tech platforms like Google and Facebook, or Meta, as it is now known.

On top of the cost of producing quality content, newsrooms must also invest in reaching audiences in a crowded digital space. In 2019, German publisher Axel Springer committed €100 million in investments for digital growth projects at two of its papers. This is on top of its IT development projects supporting its digital business model, which amounted to another €100 million. The New York Times, prioritising its digital growth, has seen its product development costs increase over 25% year-on-year. In 2020, this exceeded US$130 million. The high costs to achieve success online, even for those who already have significant readership, are testament to the challenging industry conditions.

As an open, cosmopolitan city-state, we consume varied perspectives from around the world. Nonetheless, preserving our local news media remains critical. Our local news media provide a vital Singaporean lens through which citizens can make sense of global events. It is an essential public good in our multiracial, multi-religious society. In discharging this role, SMT now produces six daily newspapers in four languages. Few of its competitors do the same.

To achieve its mission, SMT must do three things: first, make long-term investments in the capability development of technology and talent; second, sustain and develop our vernacular news media; and third, position itself as a regional thought leader.

Ms Jessica Tan and Ms Hany Soh asked about maintaining SMT’s relevance amidst digital disruption, especially for younger audiences. It is vital to understand the media consumption habits of our digital native audiences. Based on an MCI survey, around 65% of respondents access SMT’s digital content frequently in 2020. This is a steep jump from about 40% a year before. In contrast, hardcopy reach declined from about 40% to 30% over the same period, a single year. The digital pivot of SMT will be key to growing its reach with the young and old, and even with overseas audiences. More will need to be done.

In terms of user experience, digital content must be delivered swiftly, websites must be intuitively designed, applications must allow for personalisation.

In the newsroom, content management resources, data analytics and investments into artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools can help newsrooms push out news quickly, accurately and effectively. Continual evolution of content forms will also be key. As with other major publications today, SMT must package complex information in a variety of ways – texts, videos, podcasts and interactive infographics. This is especially important for younger audiences, who demand engaging news they can consume on-the-go.

At the backend, infrastructure will have to be robust enough to support the digital transition. With increasing digital viewership, SMT will also have to ensure resilience and reliability in its news provision.

Ms Hany Soh rightly asked about talent development. In today’s landscape, the skills required of journalists have changed dramatically. For example, beyond covering announcements, journalists have to be data-literate. They need to know when, where and how to reach their digital audiences so that critical news is not buried under masses of information on social media. As part of the transformation, the new SPH Media Academy will update the newsroom’s training programmes for the digital age. They will also partner internationally renowned institutions like the Poynter Institute and the Reuters Institute at Oxford University. They will offer programmes and fellowships to local journalists.

To Ms Hany Soh’s question about external collaborations, SPH Media Academy’s immediate focus will be on equipping its own journalists with digital skills and multimedia capabilities. We believe there will be good areas of synergy with the Singapore Media Academy. We will work with Mediacorp and SMT, along with our Institutes of Higher Learning, to promote collaborative efforts. In the long term, SMT can look into extending its programmes to the larger media industry in Singapore and journalists around the region.

The newsrooms will also keep pace with the increasingly complex information landscape. SMT will set up a fact-checking service to debunk fake news and launch media awareness and financial literacy programmes for the public. These initiatives complement the newsrooms’ core strengths, educating readers on identifying misinformation and scams, which are key challenges in today's digital society.

Mr Sharael Taha asked about the viability, relevance and growing the reach of vernacular media. Although vernacular readership is smaller and, therefore, much more challenging to independently sustain, it is critical to provide credible news products that serve our multiracial society.

Mr Speaker, in the 1980s, it was founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who mooted the idea for the vernacular press to merge with the English press. He did so because he foresaw that the vernacular press would inevitably come under pressure as English became the language of business, Government and education. SPH was thus established in 1984 to preserve the Chinese and Malay media.

If we had allowed our vernacular media to wither, Singapore would have been the poorer for it and we would have lost our souls. Even if they were to be unviable business propositions – which they are not – we believe it is in the public interest to do all we can to preserve and develop all the vernacular outlets in both SMT as well as Mediacorp.

Government funding for SMT will go towards sustaining vernacular newsrooms and developing new content formats like videos and podcasts, to reach the younger generations.

In addition, support from the community is essential to achieve the shared goal of safeguarding our culture and heritage. In this regard, SMT will be partnering clan associations, community groups and schools to provide students with greater access to its vernacular products.

Ms Tin Pei Ling asked about thought leadership content. With Singapore’s position as a global hub, SMT is well-placed to provide deep domain knowledge about the region, with a Singapore voice. To boost its capabilities, SMT will expand its foreign bureaus, host more events and forums and establish more partnerships to build their international audience. Today, a third of The Straits Times’ readers come from overseas. Zaobao’s websites see around seven million unique visitors monthly, more than half of which are from outside Singapore. The Chinese Media Group will be partnering Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, as well as other media outlets in the region to promote mother tongue language media to a wider audience.

As much as the media is coming under challenge throughout the world, we must be mindful that the major powers are waging a constant battle for hearts and minds worldwide – including our hearts and minds in Singapore. As a small country, we are especially prone to influence campaigns – overt and covert. And as a multiracial, multilingual country, we are especially prone to the cultural, social and even political influence that countries like China and India can continue to exert abroad.

As open as we must remain to the world, and as welcoming as we are to global media outlets broadcasting and reporting out of Singapore, we must also have Singaporeans reporting on the world from the Singaporean perspective. A Singaporean reporting on China, for example, would afford us a lens very different from an American or a European doing so. Thus, the growth of SMT’s overseas bureaus is an important area of capability development we want to support.

Mr Speaker, the direction that SMT is charting out is promising, but it will require significant investments over a period of time. During the transition, it will likely be loss-making. In the UK, The Guardian, which has a highly successful digital subscription model with almost a million paying supporters, has lost millions of dollars since 1998. It only returned to the black in 2019, after years of persistent transformation efforts. Yet, they still had to cut 12% of their workforce in 2020 to stay afloat.

The Government is ready to put support behind SMT’s transformation. We are committed to safeguarding the information space for our citizens.

Government funding of news media is commonplace in many countries and has increased in some cases during COVID-19. This underscores the public good that trusted journalism provides in a complex environment. In 2020, the French government introduced a subsidy package of over €480 million to support its news media in weathering COVID-19 losses and moving to digital platforms. In the same year, Norway and Sweden rendered €43 million and €65 million of aid respectively to their press.

Prior to its restructuring, Singapore Press Holdings Limited had invested almost $50 million annually in technology and digital talent. This has yielded some success but, from the kind of investments we see elsewhere, they clearly need to do more to accelerate the newsrooms’ transformation. The steep decline of print media and, correspondingly, the migration to the digital space, has brought SMT to an inflection point. It will tap on Government funding to make essential investments that move it decisively into the digital age.

MCI has, therefore, set aside funding support of up to $180 million annually, over the next five years. This will provide SMT with more capital to invest in the future while ensuring that they are able to sustain their current operations during this critical transition period.

In its initial years, we expect SMT to spend approximately 40% of the funding on tech investments and digital talent. The remainder will be spent on newsroom capability building and training, in particular, the vernacular newsrooms.

Ms Tin Pei Ling and Ms Jessica Tan asked about accountability measures. With such a significant amount of public funding, MCI will monitor SMT's performance closely through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that track total reach and engagement of SMT’s products, with a focus on their digital platforms; specific reach indicators for vernacular groups and youths; and resilience of SMT’s flagship products to minimise downtime and disruption.

SMT is required to provide progress update reports to MCI on a half-yearly basis. This allows MCI to track their progress and for the Government to help achieve its desired outcomes when necessary. We will also review the funding quantum after the first five years, based on the progress that SMT has made.

Mr Alex Yam asked how the Ministry will ensure editorial independence continues to be upheld in the newsrooms. SMT has exercised editorial independence since its establishment in 1984 as Singapore Press Holdings. Funding support does not change that, as is the case with Mediacorp since 2011.

In fact, the 2021 edition of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report indicated that 79% of respondents expressed trust in CNA. Is such a high level of trust attainable without objective and balanced reporting? The same report indicated that The Straits Times, one of SMT's flagship products, enjoyed a similarly high level of trust among 77% of respondents. Would SMT wish to erode this foundation?

If nobody is reading The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian or Tamil Murasu, if nobody is viewing Channel 8, Suria, Vasantham or CNA, there is no use in funding SMT or Mediacorp. It is precisely because people are reading, viewing and hearing our mainstream media that they deserve to be supported. It is because the public see them as trusted sources of news that we must do all we can to keep them as viable propositions.

As can be seen also through the KPIs set by MCI, the Government's key interest is to ensure the reach of SMT's products. No one gains if these products lack credibility and are ignored by audiences. On the contrary, we are funding them precisely because they do have readers who trust them.

Mr Speaker, to conclude, the coming years will be an exciting period as we expect a major digital transformation of our local news media landscape. MCI will work closely with SMT to ensure that our local news media upholds quality journalism delivered in innovative and engaging ways.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for the reassurance of the journalistic integrity of the newsroom with Government funding. I have two supplementary questions.

One, in terms of access to future print copies of the newspaper. I remember fondly riding in my father's car, rolling down the manual window and shouting out in dialect "ma biew po" and exchanging a couple of coins for a copy of the evening tabloid. Many of our older generation continue to rely on access to news via the printed copies. In this restructuring and the pivot towards digital, how will the Government ensure the continued availability of printed copies in the future so that our elders in society are not left out?

Two, in terms of the workforce in SMT. Over the last few years, I recall that in October 2009, there was a restructuring and 70 staff from SPH's Media Group were laid off. And I think in 2020, a further 5% of the workforce, over 100, were also laid off as part of addressing the challenges of COVID-19. As it continues to pivot and transform itself, how will the Government, through its funding mechanism, ensure that workers within the Media Group are fairly treated as it continues to pivot towards the digital sphere?

Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Alex Yam for both his questions. On his question about access to print, both the Government and SMT are very mindful that significant segments of our population rely on print to read about the daily happenings in Singapore and to get a perspective of the issues that are of importance to us. So, retaining the availability of print will remain a priority for quite a while, I believe.

The key issue is how SMT can do this in a way that is still efficient and does not drain its resources unnecessarily. Some of the moves that they have taken are practical and sensible ones, such as, assessing whether it makes sense for them to continue to have two evening papers, Shin Min Daily News and Lianhe Wanbao. And after a careful strategic review, looking at the reach of both evening papers and satisfying their own desire to ensure that the evening papers continue to reach a wide enough audience, decided that they will cease the publication of Lianhe Wanbao by focusing on Shin Min instead.

These kinds of decisions, I think, will continue to be taken, if necessary. But SMT as well as the Government are committed to ensuring that even those who access news mainly through print will be able to do so on a continued basis. So, I can give Mr Alex Yam that assurance.

Secondly, Mr Alex Yam has asked a very important question with regard to fair treatment of the staff of SPH and also how the Government funding will seek to ensure that. The best thing I think we can do to retain talents within SMT is to provide them with the support to make that transformation. Talents everywhere, including journalistic talents in media companies, want to know that they have a future. It is the main reason that they will stay on, invest their time and effort to produce quality journalism. And the only way we can do so is if the digital transformation is not a start-stop process, not a half-hearted process, but one that is taken with great commitment and passion. This is what energises them and this is what makes them want to stay.

At this present moment, as it turns out, there is intense competition for talent. So, SMT and, actually, all media companies, are working very hard to keep as many talent as possible. Against this backdrop, it would be most unwise if SMT or any other media company were to be perceived by their employees of unfair treatment. It is in their own interest to ensure that they paint a realistic vision of the future and they commit the resources to help their talent grow and develop along with the organisation's transformation.

So, I have confidence in SMT that they are minded to look after their people because they are committed to the public to provide quality journalism, which cannot be achieved without the talent within their vault.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, with close to $1 billion of Government funding for SMT committed over the next five years, how will the Government assure Singaporeans that SMT's content will not be tainted by allegations of political interference?

Mr Speaker, firstly, the Government has committed to set aside up to $180 million dollars annually over the next five years. And I want to emphasise this: up to $180 million dollars. What is actually going to be disbursed will depend on the specific investments that SMT makes, through their progress updates to MCI, whether we are satisfied that these are the right things to do and that they will produce or they have the likelihood of producing good results. So, it is up to $180 million annually and, therefore, up to $900 million over five years.

I am actually not so surprised that Mr Pritam Singh put this question up. And if I may, Mr Pritam Singh's question, again asking about influence on editors, journalist, is too predictable, if I may put it this way. His question seems to suggest that he does not trust the journalists and our mainstream media to be objective in reporting, to apply their minds and to be discerning or to have a sense of responsibility to truthful reporting for the public. I hope I am wrong in thinking that this is what Mr Pritam Singh is suggesting, but that is what came to mind when he spoke those words.

Regardless of what I say or what Mr Pritam Singh may suggest, the true test is whether the public trusts the media and how they exercise their choice on a day-to-day basis in consuming news media, when so many alternatives are available to them at zero cost. And, fortunately for us, for all of us, our local mainstream media are trusted by people and we have every reason to keep it so.

Mr Speaker, I thank Ms Hany Soh for her very well-intended and wise suggestion to SMT. We will be more than happy to convey it.

I think, looking at the leadership of SMT all the way from its Chairman to its CEO and its senior team, I have no doubt that they are open to all kinds of talent, whether they are men or women, and they will do everything they can to hold as many of them in this organisation and help to propel its forward transformation.

Thank you, Speaker. If I may just quickly follow up with the question for Minister Josephine Teo. She mentioned that she felt that there was trust in our local media. I am wondering: (a) if she would also argue that our local media marketplace is generally competitive; and, hence, part (b) of my question would be, if that is so, whether consumers are actually exercising their choice, but perhaps they do not entirely trust the local media, with not purchasing the various publications of our local media outlets, which has, therefore, necessitated this usage of public funds to fund SMT.

Mr Speaker, it is not me that feel that our local mainstream media can be trusted. This is the readers voting with their hands when they swipe their mobile phones on the screen and giving that demonstration of confidence in our local mainstream media through the reach and engagement data that is publicly available.

It is not me claiming that the local mainstream media is trusted. They are asked these questions through surveys conducted by institutions that have good standing; I mentioned the Reuters Institute. They did not give this response to a question that I put to them; this is an independent survey done by a respected organisation. So, the facts speak for themselves and it is not for us to speculate why.

But I think what Assoc Prof Jamus Lim is trying to say is that, if they trust these local mainstream media so much, why are they not buying or paying for subscription? And if they were doing so, then the local mainstream media would not have to turn to the Government for funding support.

I thought that in my earlier responses to Members' questions, I had made it quite clear that this situation for print media companies is not unique to SMT. It is worldwide, whether it is in the US with the New York Times, or in the UK with The Guardian. It is very hard to translate eyeballs into dollars. And without advertising revenue, these media outlets and companies will be loss-making. The Guardian's example is a very stark one. And the figures I quoted, since 1998, they have been trying to be in the black. They managed to only in 2019, after two decades of transformation. And even then, last year, they had to cut people, 12% of the workforce.

So, it is not just your ability to reach audiences. The audiences can get news content free of charge almost anywhere. You and I are beneficiaries of that. We do not have to pay to get news, but we will choose where we spend our time, in order to get trusted news. And that is what is the most important of all and that is why our local mainstream media deserve to be supported.