News

Changing Minds, Enriching Lives

Patrick Daniel, Editor-In-Chief, English and Malay Newspapers Division, SPH Ltd, Singapore, highlights the major challengs to newspapers.

by WAN-IFRA Staff executivenews@wan-ifra.org | September 2, 2015

His presentation reads, “Mumbai, we have a problem.” He has been nuturing newspapers for 29 years as he proudly talks about the profits made by SPH since 1845. They have been publishing 19 newspapers in four different languages for the past 170 years. Their daily circulation is 1 million and the reach is 2.6 million targeting audience of 15 years and above.

SPH aims to be Asia’s largest media house with the motto “Enriching Minds, Changing Lives.” However, he points to the major challenges that newspapers all over the world are facing and will soon infect India, too. The massive forces of the digital world and growth of mobile.

Nonetheless, he presses that newspapers are still the most effective traditional source of news. The revenue of newspapers is sharply falling and the culprits are advertisements. Audince is the most important source of revenue, and catering to them carefully is the most important factor.

Daniel discusses four solutions to these problems:

1. Transform the newsrooms- make them multimedia because print in itself cannot survive.

2. Diversify revenue.

3. Cut costs- rethink the ways of operation.

4. Maintain high journalistic standards!

Share via
Copy link