Sales, Social and Tech

Sex and controversies did not bode well for The New Paper as it lost the most circulation figure among all of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) dailies. The New Paper is known for its raunchy cover headlines to pull in the readers. Based on SPH annual report , The New Paper drop below the circulation figure of 100,000 in six years to 98,100. Since August 2006, the publication's circulation figures have dropped by 12%. The drop in The New Paper circulation could have been the result of the possible backlash it received for the reporting of the opposition parties, particularly on the Singapore Democratic Party, during the Singapore General Elections of 2011. Though the General Elections 2011 was held in May, the fall in circulation figures in August could have been the trickle effect created by this backlash. August 2006 August 2007 August 2008 August 2009 August 2010 August 2011 Aug 2010 - Aug 2011 Aug 2006 - Aug 2011 Tamil Murasu 10,200 11,70...

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) , the publisher for The Straits Times, issued Daniel Ong, a former radio personality in Singapore, a bill of $749 for republishing an article about his venture into the F&B businesses. Wrote  Daniel Ong , "We get an email stating that we need to pay SPH $535.00 per story about Jaime(my superstar wifey) and our Successful business Twelve cupcakes. Oh And there's also a $214 fee for investigating us...huh?!?!?!?! So all in all we owe them about $3k...??? FOR sharing it on social media and our own website. ..So, we grant them the stories...n after the story gets published... of course we SHARE IT with our following! In total about 30,000 people we reach out to...on FB and twitter(maybe lotsa duplicates).. " Supporters of Daniel Ong have claimed SPH for being greedy to ask for an interviewee for payment to republish the entire article. It is also rather disappointing that some communication professionals are putting down SPH's...

Stomp, the online citizen portal for The Singapore Press Holdings, has admitted that a photo showing the MRT moving with its doors open is a fake.  Interestingly, the online citizen who posted the photo was found to be Stomp's own content producer. She is now an ex-content producer as Stomp has sacked her for lying that she took the photo, found to be a fake and from an unknown Twitter post. Wrote The Straits Times ,  STOMP would like to apologise for the posting on June 20, supposedly showing an SMRT train that left Lakeside station with one set of doors open. The report, submitted by a STOMP content producer, has been found to be fabricated. The content producer, Ms Samantha Ann Francis, had submitted the photo to STOMP, claiming that she had taken it when she was at Lakeside MRT Station at 10.15pm on June 19. Following investigations by our staff, Ms Francis has admitted that she had in fact taken the photo off a posting on Twitter. The original tweet has si...

Yahoo! SEA has filed it defence against Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)  copyright infringement suit  and has also counter claimed that SPH reproduced Yahoo! content on STOMP without permission. Wrote Yahoo! SEA , In its defence, Yahoo! SEA highlighted the fundamental principle that copyright law does not protect facts and information and that the public has the right to be informed of news and current events in Singapore.    The internet company also filed a counterclaim which alleges that on at least two known occasions over the last year, SPH had itself substantially reproduced Yahoo! content on its citizen-journalism site STOMP. I expected STOMP to bring trouble to SPH one day.

The circulation for The Straits Times grew only 0.38% in year to year growth despite an aggressive subscription campaign in 2011.  The New Paper saw the biggest drop in circulation numbers as it fell 3.44% year to year. The biggest gain in circulation was for Tamil Murasu as it grew 16.22%, In May 2011, The Straits Times reported of its aggressive circulation drive. Wrote The Straits Times , ABOUT 4,200 readers have become new or converted direct subscribers since The Straits Times subscription campaign started last Thursday... ...Those interested can sign up or convert their subscriptions to direct ones through phone or e-mail. Mr Chua Wee Phong, executive vice-president of SPH's circulation department, which is helming the drive, said that the response has been very encouraging.

News have spread today about Singapore Press Holdings suing Yahoo South East Asia for "has "substantially" reproduced articles from its newspapers without proper licensing or authorization". A few friends on Facebook found examples of articles on Yahoo that may be the 23 articles that is in contention and most of them are found to be without byline. Take this article for example. Wrote Yahoo News , Speaking to The New Paper (TNP), Tan’s 54-year-old daughter, a civil servant who wanted to be known as Miss Koh, said that she hired the maid to take care of her mother. However, on Friday, Koh received a call from her tenant saying that the maid had disappeared and Tan was alone at home. When she got back, she found S$40,000 worth of jewellery and about S$20,000 in local and foreign currency missing. The Yahoo News team cited the interview to The New Paper and therefore assumes that the copyright has not been infringed. However, if this entire article is bas...