Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Chair, the first tranche of public funds was disbursed to SPH Media Trust in March 2023. Over four Ministerial Statements in this House, the Government has put out its reasons for making the taxpayers subsidise the running of SPH Media Trust or at least, partly subsidising the running of SPH Media Trust.
What we have been told is that public funding is needed for three reasons.
First, without public funding, SPH Media Trust’s transformation into a digital news company will not be able to afford the investment and costs of running its professional newsrooms, which is expected to outstrip advertising revenue given the intense competition for eyeballs online.
Second, it is in the public interest to preserve local news media, particularly those in the local vernacular languages, that are important to give voice to our multiracial communities, but which are difficult to sustain financially given their inherently smaller readership or viewership.
Third, we were told public funding is necessary to support SPH Media Trust as the public will be well-served by a mainstream media that is trusted.
One example of this was the Reuters Institute Digital News Report of 2021, where 77% of respondents expressed trust in The Straits Times – up from 70% in 2018. In June last year, SPH Media Trust’s Audit and Risk Committee found that SPH had indeed overstated its circulation numbers between September 2020 and March 2022 and a Police report was also filed.
Given the provision of taxpayer funding for SPH Media Trust, there is considerable public interest in how Singaporeans will be better served by the mainstream media in Singapore. This is represented by Singaporeans who seek greater editorial independence, a wider diversity of views, providing important feedback on Government policies and even investigative journalism on matters of significant public interest.
We were told that there will be key performance indicators (KPIs) for SPH Media Trust and it has to provide the Ministry of Communication and Information (MCI) with half-yearly updates on its risk management framework. Can the Minister inform the public – who are now SPH Media Trust’s stakeholders; one, what are the KPIs that SPH Media Trust has to meet under the funding framework? Two, how has SMP fared on its KPIs thus far, after being subsidised for one year? Three, which KPIs did it fail to meet and why? Four, has MCI found SPH Media Trust’s half-yearly risk updates satisfactory? Five, how has SPH Media Trust addressed its risk management framework?
I look forward to the Ministry’s replies and request the officeholder to share under which line item and page of the Revenue and Expenditure Estimates the subsidy to SPH Media Trust is reflected at and what is the expenditure for 2023 and the amount budgeted for 2024/2025?
I ask because there is not a specific line item making reference to significant market power (SMP) or SPH Media Trust.
The Minister for Communications and Information (Mrs Josephine Teo):
Mr Pritam Singh asked about Government funding to SPH Media.
As a public service media entity, SPH Media plays a crucial role in: informing Singaporeans of issues of national importance; reflecting Singapore’s values and way of life; reporting international events with a Singapore eye; and projecting Singapore’s perspectives to the rest of the world.
SPH Media is also an institution and repository of our shared memories. Last year, Lianhe Zaobao celebrated its 100th Anniversary whilst The Straits Times is approaching 180 years of publication. Both Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu are also well-established, catering to the needs of our Malay and Tamil language communities.
However, SPH Media is facing its biggest challenge yet. The entire media industry has been severely disrupted by digitalisation and social media. Readership is declining as audiences have a multitude of choices. Traditional sources of revenue are also falling dramatically, with advertising shifting to social media and other online platforms. These problems are not unique to SPH Media.
Even an established media company like The Washington Post lost US$100 million last year and had to cut 10% of its headcount, despite extensive efforts to transform. Digital-only platforms are not spared either. The Pulitzer Prize-winning BuzzFeed News shut down last April, despite hiring top journalists and opening bureaus around the world.
According to The New York Times, one out of four newspapers that existed in 2005 no longer does.
Prior to restructuring into a company limited by guarantee, SPH posted its first ever loss. Left to market forces and commercial stresses, it would likely have gone the way of The Washington Post and BuzzFeed. This is particularly so with its vernacular titles, which have naturally smaller audiences and which members like Mr Sharael Taha and Ms Tin are rightly concerned about.
The Government decided to step in to give SPH Media a fighting chance in this new media landscape. Thus far, around $320 million has been disbursed to SPH Media across FYs 2022 and 2023. Anticipating a more challenging environment, as outlined earlier, we have budgeted to provide SPH Media with around $260 million in funding for FY 2024.
This is reflected in MCI’s Budget Book, as part of MCI’s overall grant disbursement provided to other organisations.
As I shared previously in the House, funding for SPH Media is targeted at three main areas – talent, technology and vernacular capabilities. They reflect the importance the Government has placed on quality journalism, digital transformation and upholding multiculturalism.
To ensure public accountability and fiscal prudence, SPH Media Trust is structured to comprise members representing different segments of society – from commercial entities like DBS, UOB and OCBC; to local institutes of higher learning like NUS, NTU, SMU and SUTD. But ultimately, SPH Media is accountable to Singaporeans. The news industry is a people-centric business and SPH Media has a crucial public service media role.
Therefore, KPIs are set to track reach and engagement across all communities, including specific targets for the vernacular outlets, youth and digital reach. MCI also requires SPH Media to report regularly on their performance in these areas and comply with relevant audits to ensure oversight of how funds are spent, as well as ownership and accountability of public service media outcomes.
So far, the funding disbursed has been put to good use. SPH Media has been strengthening its digital systems to improve its outreach, in line with what other global publications have done. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, for example, have pivoted from print to digital-first models, adopting multimedia formats to increase their readership.
Likewise, SPH Media recently adopted a new digital content management system to support its online coverage and launch mobile apps across its English and vernacular news titles. It has also made extensive efforts to improve retention and quality of its newsrooms through training, scholarships and fellowships with overseas institutions, such as the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. However, there is still considerable catch-up for SPH Media.
While it has maintained its overall reach and achieved a modest increase in its digital subscriptions, it did not meet all its KPIs on digital reach, youth reach, vernacular reach and average time spent on its websites and apps. Accordingly, it did not receive the full funding that was committed.
More importantly, these results show that the efforts made thus far are just the beginning. SPH Media will need to do more to maintain its relevance in this challenging media environment and will need continued support as it strives to get onto firmer footing.
Mr Pritam Singh: Thank you, Chairman. I thank Minister Josephine Teo for responding to my cut. Just two quick questions for the Minister.
On the first point with regard to the question I asked on the specific line item in the Budget Book, which would essentially flesh out the funding to SPH Media Trust, and I thank the Minister for pointing out that it is under Grant Subventions and Capital Injections to other Organisations. In view of the large grant, can I invite the Minister to consider, perhaps in the future, a separate line item for SPH Media Trust? I say this because, in view of the funding framework and how the Government has stepped in into the public service media space, if I can call it that, I think it will be helpful for people to track, on an ongoing basis, how much taxpayer funding goes into the funding of SPH Media. That is just a suggestion for the Ministry.
The second point pertains to some of the KPIs that the Minister shared, certain KPIs that were mapped were not met. At the end of every Ministry in the Budget Book, there is a section on KPIs with key indicators of how the Ministry looks upon what services are rendered to the public and so forth. It would be helpful also perhaps, in view of the longer-term funding of SPH Media, I would suggest, to include some of those KPIs in that KPI section in the Budget Book, so that the public also can be informed of where it is doing well and where it is not. For example, I think the Minister spoke about reach, engagement, vernacular targets. So, that is just something for the Minister to consider and I would be grateful if she could comment on that, please.
The Chairman: Minister Teo.
6.30 pm
Mrs Josephine Teo: Mr Chairman, I thank Mr Singh for his suggestion.
I think it is not entirely up to MCI to decide how these things are reported in the Budget Book because there is a certain convention that the Government follows. I do not recall exactly, but my impression is that say, you take public transport subsidies, for example. I do not believe it is reflected in the Budget Book as line items that it goes to SMRT; it goes to SBS Transit; it goes to another bus operator. It does not quite work like that.
Certainly, I think if you consider the funding for preschool services, I do not recall that it also goes down to entity level. It is just we provide for a cluster of activities. We do not necessarily reflect in the Budget Book exactly what sums go to which entities. I could be wrong, but it is certainly something that we will look at. But it is not entirely up to MCI how to show these things in the Budget Book.
The same goes for KPIs. In the Budget Book, we report on the KPIs that the Ministry is required to meet. The Ministry interacts with many other stakeholders.
For example, for MCI, we are responsible for IMDA. IMDA has got interactions with telcos. We may not provide funding to them, but we license them. They are also very critical service providers in Singapore. They also have KPIs to be met in order to continue to hold their licence. It does not mean that we lock, stock and barrel, transport the KPIs into the Budget Book. It is quite a different way of representing the scope of our responsibilities.
I thank the Member for raising these as possibilities. I think his broader point is that the public would benefit from more information about how these entities, the public service media entities are doing.
I think these are very reasonable questions. We will have to find more ways of putting information out that is reasonable. I would, however, add, Mr Chairman, that we can continue to look at things like reach, readership, engagement. But if we come back to the fundamentals of why we are supporting public service media, it goes back to the question of whether Singaporeans have media sources that they can trust. It is trust that is the most important.
I think in that regard, at least the Reuters Institute, which Mr Singh himself mentioned, does have an annual report that is quite useful. It looks at, amongst media organisations, the most trusted brands in Singapore. Mr Singh cited the findings of 2021, where he said that The Straits Times, which is one of the titles belonging to SPH Media Trust, came in at 77%, I believe.
I think, if I could just say how useful that report is in helping us to shape our own thinking. The latest report that has already been made available is of 2023. If you look at the 2023 report, you will find that within Singapore, amongst the top five most trusted brands, all are public service media entities from Singapore, homegrown. If you look at the top 10, then eight of them are our own public service media entities.
If we were to remove our own public service media entities, what we are really left with will be CNN, which is a US company. We are left with the BBC, which is a UK company. Then we are left with Yahoo News. If you then use that as a lens of thinking about why and how we should continue to resource our own public service media, I think in some sense that beats all the indicators that we can put in place.
I am not saying that those KPIs are not important. I think they have to be continuously evaluated together with other kinds of validation which Mr Singh himself highlighted.
Ministry of Communications and Information
1 March 2024
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2362
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 