Spiegel
I can hardly claim this to be an exhaustive account, but over the past month or so it seemed rather difficult to get a dose of the day’s big news from the front pages of Singaporean English-language newspapers.
I first noticed this on 18 November, when the Straits Times threw around its main section a translucent coversheet promoting Volkswagen’s new Polo model. See-through it may be, readers nonetheless would have been severely distracted from the front page content by this novel advertisement.
A month before Christmas, on 24 November, Today set the shopping ball rolling, selling its first two pages out to John Little. Then the SEA Games beckoned and Milo got into the act, placing ads on the front two pages of the 8 December issue.
Perhaps inspired by Today’s example, The New Paper proceeded the very next day to whore out its first three pages (and the back page) to the milk beverage brand.
My Paper hummed to the same tune. On one day, you might get a full-page advert for Ginvera facial care products fronted the issue, without a single line of news in sight. On another, you might get Linda Chung sporting a wistful look, hoping that’ll convince of the wondrous nourishing qualities that Bio-essence attributes to its Hydra Spa Energy sleeping mask.
From 3 to 24 December, 12 out of 16 weekday day issues carried a full-page advert on its front cover. Over the same period of time, My Paper did the same for 7 out of 16 issues.
What ever happened to the news? Not quite as important as the cheques waved in the faces of newspaper executives I imagine.
Sure, the cover pages aren’t actually labeled as page 1. When Today, for example, carries full-page adverts on its de facto first two pages, it labels them as part of the cover wrap”, and the third page becomes the de jure first. But nonetheless, newspapers without the news on the cover? Something a bit wrong with that, no?
That these newspapers could get away with it is pretty damning indictment of their attitudes towards their audience. Page 1 is the most important of any newspaper, and to plaster it with anything but the biggest news story for the day would be bad form and a great disservice to readers. In this regard, the local freesheets are probably the worst perpetrators. Pick up a copy of SPH’s Paper or MediaCorp’s <oday and more often than not you wouldn’t know what the big news was until you reach page three.
To be fair, the newspaper business model is highly dependent on advertising revenues, and more so for freesheets. But even conceding this fact, it would appear that day is a tad too willing to whore its pages out for some dough.
In terms of amount of advertising as a proportion of total print space, the 9, 10 and 11 December issues are particularly damning. Using rough calculations (in interest of transparency I explain my methodology below), I noted that over 58 pages worth of space out of 80 pages in the 9 December edition were covered by advertisements – a whopping 72.6 per cent. There was a slight improvement the next day, when Today managed just under 71 per cent advertising. On 11 December, the figure went up to nearly 74 per cent.
For the 16 weekday issues published from 3 to 24 December, my sums indicate that on average over 65 per cent of the paper’s print space would be taken up by advertising. That means almost two-thirds of day’s content in the past three weeks were not news. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for a free shopping catalogue, with some random news slapped in between the salacious models and massive discounts.
But perhaps the freesheet business model necessitates such high volume of advertising. Or the high incidence could be a consequence of the Christmas shopping period. Advertisers after all would be more eager than usual to splash the cash for ad space. As such, I will make a significant but probably useful compromise, so as to provide some kind of context to day’s advertising numbers. I hazard a comparison with their rival freesheet Paper.
Before I do so, it is important to consider possible mitigating factors. For a start, it should be noted that from July 2008 to June 2009 My Paper has averaged only eight per cent of the daily readership, in contrast to Today‘s 18 per cent. Advertisers may therefore feel more inclined to place adverts with Today – a factor which may account for the discrepancy in proportion of advertisements in each paper.
However, this inclination may be moderated by the papers’ advertising rates. As a basic guide, Today charges a rate of $28-$30 per column cm on weekdays compared to My Paper ‘s $19 per column cm. It is also more expensive to buy front page ad space in <oday; an advert 12cm tall by eight columns wide (slightly under half-page) would cost from $12,745.15 to $13,655.52 on weekdays, while a full front page My Paper advert (29cm tall by six columns wide) would cost $12,000.
There are still problems with this nonetheless. Ideally, to test whether the Christmas season was crucial in propping up the advertising volume, I would want to do a comparison with the percentages for the rest of the year. Alas, I’m but one man; unable to devote this much time and effort to collate this data over a sustained period.
Having considered these caveats, it nonetheless appears that My Paper is a lot more prudish when it comes to printing advertisements.
In the month before Christmas, My Paper had only two issues in which the advertisements took up over half of the print space. In the 26 November issue, nearly 55 per cent of its print space was taken up by adverts – nearly 55 per cent. Of the 11 December issue, just over 26 of its 52 pages were devoted to advertising.
On the whole, My Paper was nowhere as prolific as Today was in selling advertising space. The proportion of advertising space in My Paper in the past month (calculated from 19 issues dated 30 November to 24 December) averaged at only just above 26 per cent.
The difference in the proportion of advertising is startling – nearly two-thirds in Today compared with just over one-quarter in My Paper. Even factoring in readership share and advertising rates, it would seem that MediaCorp is somewhat more cavalier about selling off its print space than SPH.
These phenomena – whoring out front pages and print space – are symptoms of a more fundamental problem. Satisfying the reader is no longer an unqualified standalone priority for those who run newspapers. For better or for worse, the news media has evolved into a commercially-driven enterprise, mostly run by profit-minded proprietors whose prime concern with the journalism they produce is its profitability. To this end, satisfying the readers’ wants is important insofar as it brings in the money.
It may not be a stereotype to say that newspapers each pull off their own balancing act, between satiating executives’ quest for profits, journalists fulfilling their professional sensibilities and meeting the needs and wants of their readers.
The formula varies. Some pander far too much to readers, seeking to entertain and patronise rather than inform and educate. The Sun, the leading British daily tabloid and <he 10th largest newspaper in the world in terms of circulation, fuels moral panics and doles out generous helpings of crime, political and celebrity scandals and a daily topless female model on page 3.
Similarly, the Daily Mail finds its success – sustaining circulation over 2.1m in the past decade – in fashioning itself as the ‘voice of middle England’, pitching news and moral hysteria to its readership of lower middle-class white Britons, at the expense of journalistic ethics.
There are perhaps better ways to balance competing priorities than these unsavoury approaches. For instance, there are the likes of the Guardian Media Group, which owns amongst its titles The Guardian and The Observer. Unlike most other media organisations, the GMG “does not seek profit for the financial benefit of an owner or shareholders”, but aims to “sustain journalism that is free from commercial or political interference” whilst upholding liberal values and its public service ethos. The Group in turn is wholly owned by the Scott Trust, created in 1936 to preserve the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity, whilst championing “its principles” and promoting “freedom of the press in the UK and abroad.”
But while it aspires to lofty ideals, the Group’s flagship papers attract only a modest print readership – the Guardian consistently comes in second last in the circulation league table of national daily newspapers, while its sister paper the Observer records similarly poor numbers. Clearly, not many readers care that much for noble philosophical aspirations or transparency in journalism.
Then there is the straying too far in the direction of sheer profit-making; the blind application of the commercial logic by ditching news for adverts on the front page, or filling print space with more advertising than journalistic content (see: pleasing shareholders and screwing readers). Today seems to heading in that direction – an unfortunately myopic choice and likely damaging in the long-run.
But the bottomline is what it is, and perhaps newspaper executives sense that it is creeping up in these bad times, and decided that something has got to give. Perhaps the past month of high advertising volume was Today’s way of capitalising on the Christmas consumption boost to rake in the cash. Maybe the selling of “creative buys” and “cover wraps” is their way of suckering corporate clients into parting with their cash, seemingly viable with the economy finding its feet again.
It remains to be seen whether Today has out its readers off by swinging too far towards profit maximisation. But it shouldn’t hurt to remind ourselves that readers don’t pick up newspapers to be told that it’s marvelous what Milo can do for them. They rather wish to find out something new and relevant about their community and their world, to be entertained, and hopefully be informed and educated as well. Editors and executives will do well to remember that.
Methodology
The proportion of advertising in the freesheets were calculated by dividing the amount of print space taken up by adverts (in number of pages) by the total number of pages in the main section of the paper. I defined print space as the space on the pages of the paper where content is normally placed – it did not include the margins and normal layout elements like page numbers, dates and section headings.
I classified adverts by the following sizes – full-page, half-page, quarter-page, 1/6-page, and 1/8-page. Where adverts do not fit exactly into these size categories, I would round it down and place it into the next smaller size category (for example, an advert which takes up 1/5 of the page would be counted as a 1/6 page ad). In the case of 1/3 page adverts, I recorded them as two 1/6 page adverts.
All commercial adverts were included in the calculations. Movie and television listings were not considered to be advertising, although movie posters were.
In calculating the proportion of advertising in Today, I disregarded any supplementary sections. This is because supplements do not contain news content, and tend to have soft adverts (especially fashion catalogues, a la magazines) which form much of its content. Also, My Paper doesn’t do supplements to my knowledge. Therefore, including supplements in the calculation would skew the results to the disadvantage of Today.Given the roughness of such calculations, it must be emphasised the percentages are meant to be a crude, but I think nonetheless useful, guide.
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Today is a free circulation. They need the profits to survive. English Press circulation is in a decline and is projected to be lower each year except the chinese papers. In fact i dislike NEW PAPER most for their ultimate advertising of massage parlours and selling sex all the time. Paying for a NP is indeed an insult to my princple. I rather buy a roll of toilet paper than to buy a NP. As for Today, it is still news worthy but still way short of journalistic standards worldwide. Shitty Times in my opinion is a value for money buy only on Saturday. Other days can throw them into a waste baskets.
I think it is alright for free newspaper to print advertisement on the first page. After all, they are free. They don’t need the front page headline to attract people to pick it up at the news stand. People take it because it is free.
Having said that, I feel that if I’m paying for the Newspaper, I should have a decent front page and not a front page covered completely with advertisement.
The Guardian and The Observer are great papers – you don’t get that quality of reading almost anywhere else. They hire the best writers to do features, especially features on other writers and book reviews. Character assasination is often undertaken, even if in a literary way. Gossip-column writing at its best. Writers cannibalise every itsy-bitsy little bit of other writers’ life and work. The featured almost never read what is written about them in The Guardian and The Observer.
I too hate front pages covered with ads. My biggest pet peeve is the Saturday Straits Times which gets split up into so many sections just to sell more front page space while the reader ends up being inconvenienced. Someone should tell these advertisers that their ads have a reverse effect of annoying readers rather than enticing them.
Another peeve is bus windows plastered with ads. Visibility at night is reduced to virtually zero, which is really annoying when you’re trying to look out for a bus stop.
The Online Citizen and other online publications like News Intercom don’t even come close in that respect. Writers writing for The Guardian and The Observer are paparazzi with credentials (authorship, perhaps even a Masters, and “literariness”). One always worries about the health of those who are featured if they get even a whiff of what is written about them.
Great job, Spiegel! Thanks for doing this analysis. It would be great if you or someone on this site extends this for longer time periods. One possibility is to interest a graduate student to create this dataset for his/her thesis or dissertation.
Today began the whole “whoring” strategy to ramp up its circulation, and ST and TNP had no choice but to follow, as advertisers were complaining that they received more exposure (bang for the buck) with Today. Today’s strategy has been interesting- it began with some fairly controversial articles and commentaries so that it would be seen as the “anti-ST”, but then under pressure to make more $$, it moved to its current over-the-top advertising strategies. Today’s articles are as “interesting” as ST’s, and it’s free, but it carries many more ads – there seems to be no point reading it anymore..
why so free to do this analysis. there are better thing to write
SPH and Media Corp should merge their newspaper and magazine departments to create world class international newspapers and magazines, rather than fake competition between one another in the tiny Singapore market and grabbing advertising dollars.
Instead the government try to stop free press and prevent others from entering the market. They kill creativity and stifle people.
the people have endured too long with MSM.
Alternative media can give a fresh, different perspective.
This shows the need for more competition from really private news organizations as well as Alternative Media to give the consumers of news something more value added. We are into a new decade. Its Time.
Change! Change Everything. Asap.
This is an aspiration of mine.
The reality is the People Accepted, Accepts and Will continue to Accept, as is typical of them.
So, no change. maybe change color lah. hahaha! wahhahhahaahha!
There are also other similarly important issues to discuss.
We need for issues discussed on TOC.
TR has risen in viewership.
Its way up there in ranking.
Hope my honest view is not deleted.
For that many words, the writer of this article shows zero understanding of the newspaper business. Simply put, it is a business- unless you have a philanthropist or trust fund, as in the case of Guardian, that is willing to throw away money.
In contrast to what the writer is saying, more advertisements are in the interest of the readers, particularly for a free newspaper like Today. Every additional page of news have to be sustained by additional advertising. In short, less advertisements means less news. What readers pay for a newspaper is not even enough to cover the printing cost.
Newspaper revenues come mainly from advertising. And needless to say, only with more revenue can a newspaper improve its product.
@12) Annonymous on January 7th, 2010 12.50 pm
I did mention in my piece: “To be fair, the newspaper business model is highly dependent on advertising revenues, and more so for freesheets. But even conceding this fact, it would appear that day is a tad too willing to whore its pages out for some dough.”
I am fully aware of the fact that journalism is sustained by advertising. It is the basis of their business model. It is why so many newspapers in the West have closed down, especially during the financial crisis, when newspaper advertising revenues fell.
“In short, less advertisements means less news.”
This is not true. More advertisements do not mean more news. Advertising revenues have not been reinvested by the media organisations into improving the quality and quantity of journalism.
This is largely down to the corporatist mentality that dominates the running of the news media. Newspaper owners want profits, and this means cutting costs and paying out the profits to shareholders instead of reinvesting the money into the newsroom.
The prevailing trend in the news media is to do more with less, fewer reporters, more work to do. Newsroom cut backs have been made across the board – even in newspapers where the company is still profitable.
The result is not more news, but more “bad” news. Journalists now are increasingly under pressure to produce more news, but with less time to write stories, check facts, verify sources, or even go out into the streets to actually cover a beat.
Annonymous, I recommend you to read the book Flat Earth News by Nick Davies (http://www.flatearthnews.net/).
Also, you may wish to read this news story, which will give you some idea of the problem the news media is facing. A team of filmmakers made up a series of fabrications about celebrities and fed them to tabloid newspapers, so as to prove that journalists don’t check facts. The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Daily Express were duped in the hoax.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/14/tabloid-fake-celebrity-stories-hoax
@Annonymous
Further to the earlier links I posted, you should read this. Walter Cronkite, no less, is warning against the profit-mindedness of the news media.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/08/business/main2450034.shtml
I quote from the story:
“Pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned Thursday.”
In a keynote address at Columbia University, Cronkite said today’s journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer can journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, “to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed.”
Instead, he said, “they face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less.”
obviously, with no other competitor, SPH is free to do as it wishes, whether putting adverts on the cover page of all their publications, or providing biased, one-sided articles.
most singaporeans have no better alternatives to turn to in terms of printed press. they have little choice but to stick to one of SPH’s publications for news coverage. and become therefore ignorant of the standards worldwide and, over time, become limited in thinking.
naturally, being a profit-driven business, it is no misdeed for the upper echelons to give away the first pages to some skincare company, or bust enhancement firm, or what have they these days… however, when SPH’s about the only source of news and the overall in-charge of the nation’s broadsheet, it becomes a sin to do what they have done.
Another pseudo intellectual exercise by ivory tower snooty purists !
I agree the ads at TODAY are blatantly distracting …. but I rather this than if they are not commercially viable.
After the revamp, my paper has improved. But in terms of neat presentation & the feel of ‘different’ presentation of news from ST Group, TODAY is still the next best substitute to ST.
I agree with the other writer that New Paper is worst – if not for EPL fix but event he sports coverage is declining in quality : full of betting writeups & odds calculation. The periennial Health centre Ads even the main news pieces seems to be very lightweight & sensational – explained away as more ‘graphically presented’.
FOC FOC FOC is so rare these days, so keep up the good work TODAY & MyPaper !
We need an Alternative MainStream Media newspaper that has no gonmin people in it.
For a change.
actually all local papers are craps. i dont read it anymore other than the chinese papers which are meant for my parents and for me when I need to er.,,,,,..visit the loo.
I catch all balanced and unbiased news online and u know what…
ITS FREE NOT TAINTED AT ALL.
I don’t buy the news as in i read free ones from good neighbors and friends.
why pay and pay when i can read for free legally? kekeke
Two points of clarification. Advertising rates/cost per se don’t mean nothing. The Cost Per Thousand (CPM) is just as important, but not totally important. Hence, if the circulations are not included in the equation, then the argument is difficult to be evaluated.
Secondly, the proof of the pudding is in the business response to the advertisers. So long as the advertisers think they are getting reasonable ROIs, they and the media owners will keep repeating the exercises.
It is interesting personally for me, that other than the Volkswage ‘transparent’ ad, I have zero recollection of the ads mentioned in the article. Which means that they were blind spots where I was concerned.
On the editorial front, I like the more gutsy approach taken by the sports and business writers – okay it is relative but still compared with ST, BT and MP it is a breadth of fresh air. So, TODAY is a good counterbalance to the rest of the “newspapers” that we have.
@wayang,
I tried to get circulation numbers for both papers, but there are no 2009 figures available. Today does claim to have guaranteed 300,000 circulation on weekdays, but that is a minimum sum and not a precise figure. SPH annual report 2009 strangely omitted My Paper circulation, despite the fact that this figure had appeared in previous annual reports.
As such I used the percentage of daily readership as a comparison. I think it is more instructive and useful than simply circulation (which is just absolute numbers without comparison to the overall readership), since it would give an indication of their market share.
As for the advertisers’ evaluation of their returns on their investment, that is not easily quantifiable by us outsiders. I could only work with what I can get, and I hope my arguments reflected the inherent shortcomings in the analysis.
Wow who made the graph?
Front page news for Singapore today: Get your Visa Mastercard for only $1!
Its gonna encourage spending based on credit again.
Never learns. History will repeat.
Who audits the circulation figures or do we base on what is reported?
A technical question nia. Anyone knows?
I suspect Circulation affects their pricing for advertisements which is not cheap.
I remember talking to a former senior journalist from ST who had been moved to “Special Projects.” He proclaimed loudly that he was in the section that was “Making ALL the MONEY,” and then said, “NEWS IS NOTHING.” – I think that says it all about how the news is regarded in Singapore at least…..
Today isn’t actually a newspaper, or even a product catalogue. It’s a handy device to help you avoid looking at other people on the train.
@Jeremi Tan Loong Loong
Circulation is audited by the Media Circulations Services.
http://presspedia.journalism.sg/doku.php?id=advertising_and_circulation_trends
Readership numbers is audited by Nielsen.
http://sg.acnielsen.com/site/20091022.htm
Is Media Circulations Services a stat board?
Who are working in these?
What is their background?
Who audits Nielsen?
Who is Nielsen’s Client(s)?
@Berlinda Jon
Hmm ok, the MCS has since changed its name to Audit Bureau of Circulations Singapore.
According to their website, they are “a private limited company incorporated in Singapore in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act, Cap. 185.” and “a not-for-profit organization and is controlled by a Board of Directors with equal representation from the three constituent associations.”
http://abcsingapore.org/about.html
ACNielsen is a global marketing research firm. Their clients…too numerous to list, I’d imagine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACNielsen
31) Objective on January 9th, 2010 12.40 pm
To Objective,
Free doesn’t mean good. Price doesn’t mean quality. If anything, it seems that you epitomise the unfortunate Singaporean mentality that puts a premium on price and practicality over all else.
It is so simple.
The more ads you get, the higher the chance of Today staying alive.
The reason My Paper has fewer ads (vs Today, and currently vs 2 months ago) is fewer advertisers want to place ads in them, because they have lower visibility compared to Today. They were more ad-filled 2 months ago cos they slashed ad prices by up to 75% then. Once the discount was withdrawn, so were the ads.
If My Paper could, they would go 75% ads and beyond. But they can’t for now.
Your Saturday ST costs like, $2/issue to print. You pay $1. What makes up the shortfall? Ads.
Without ads – front page, cover wrap, quarter-page, popup 3d technicolour etc etc, it doesn’t matter – no paper will survive, let alone be profitable.
The only way it’ll survive if it were to be propped up by parties with vesteds. So what do you get? Unabashedly state-run press or, perhaps in a freer country, newspapers with overt leanings in favour of whoever’s signing the paycheques.
So you have 70% ads in an 80-page copy of Today. That means you get the equivalent of 24 pages of news. But if you look at a typical low-ad day (say 1st day of CNY, or maybe the Monday edition) you have 60% ads in a 40-page paper.
That makes … 24 pages of news.
So you’ve lost the front page, such that you can’t see what’s hot by glancing at a copy on your doorstep.
Don’t fret. Just, you know, pick it up and, like, open it to the “fake” Page 1. The “front page news” is there. Not on the front page. But it’s there.
Short of your philantrophically offering to underwrite the entire costs of putting together a newspaper, I don’t see why you should bemoan getting free news. If you don’t think it’s of adequate quality then just … don’t read it.
Free kitty litter lining! You even get like $0.0005 cents per copy from the larung guni man! What is the negative here?
Whoops, sorry, I of course means 40% ads in a 40-page paper = 24 pages of news. :)
Whoops I of course meant 40% ads in a 40-page paper = 24 pages of news remaining …
@Cry me a river
Something tells me you didn’t read the earlier comments.
My point is not a superficial “the news is no longer on the front page”.
This disappearing front page is a symptom. Not a problem in itself. The problem is the dominance of the profiteering motive, at the expense of quality journalism.
When was the last time you opened Today, which claims to want to compete with the ST, and read anything truly original, compelling and insightful? Even the ST, if it wants to and if the issue does not touch upon an area which the govt frowns upon, can produce some compelling journalism, like on regional piracy, the tsunami aftermath five years on etc. Today doesn’t.
And it doesn’t seem to be for want of resources – it shares its news gathering resources with Channel News Asia. The articles you read either on Today or on CNA website are often written by the same journalists. In this sense, it is similar to My Paper, which shares its news pool with ST and Zaobao.
Today appears to be earning the advertising dollars, but not using the money to produce the journalism it could do. Where does it go? Profits I imagine.
This is all good in the short-term, but I suspect an ultimately myopic strategy. Instead of investing in quality, training and developing journalistic talent, MediaCorp is content to earn the dosh and pay it out as dividends.
There is news and there is news. The Economist classifies itself as a newspaper, even though it is a weekly. TODAY’s declaration of taking on ST does not mean “more of the same”. My view on whether it has in recent times produced anything original differs from yours. I bellieve they have.
Conrad in the business sections have addressed SGX issues which BT/ST had not. The sports guys write provoking articles on the state of foobtall in Singapore, although NewPaper is not too bad on this one.
Competing does not mean, I feel, that you need to go head-on. Given the monopolistic press situation, competing means taking the strategic approach of offering something refreshing to readers, which in turn attract advertisers. Their success is reflected in the (yet again) change in strategic approach of having the Chinese section as a pull-out, under the guise of serve-the-readers-better spin.
What SPH has done is converting MyPaper into an English free sheet. Presumably, the decision was based on research.
The point really is this – whether the front page is news filled or not is not the crucial point, I believe. A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman – with or without make-up. And beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
“The Economist classifies itself as a newspaper, even though it is a weekly.”
Actually, there is nothing wrong with the idea of weekly newspapers. All Sunday newspapers are weekly newspapers – Observer, News of the World, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Times, etc.
“TODAY’s declaration of taking on ST does not mean “more of the same”. My view on whether it has in recent times produced anything original differs from yours. I bellieve they have.”
Today hasn’t done any journalism, that I’ve seen anyway, that rises above the reactive – it covers diary stories, like scheduled events, govt reports, hard news. I don’t remember seeing any in-depth features, apart from occasional commentary. If you do, please direct me and I would like to see it myself.
In this regard, even the New Paper does better. It does investigations and digs stuff up. It goes after stories. The problem is their focus is on the sensational human interest stories (which can be expanded into more in-depth reporting on the wider social problems they reflect, but TNP usually doesn’t).
ST does a lot of this reactive reporting too, but sometimes they go deeper – with some insightful reporting into social issues (that don’t fall outside of govt OB markers), like with their Saturday special.
Despite what Today claims, I don’t think they have actually done anything to take on ST, which is unfortunate. It is merely focusing on its own market and playing to it – giving commuters some reading material on their way home. No time for in-depth material, just hard news mostly, with entertainment, sports and business tagged on.
@Spiegel:
You are right. Any profit made, if channelled to beefing up the newsroom, will of course result in improvements in editorial coverage, writing standards, and so on.
Problem is, they are trying to run a business, no? What kind of business aims to flatline profit margins? Otherwise, they are a philantrophic entity, or angling hard at bankruptcy come the first shock to the industry. Neither makes sense.
“The problem is the dominance of the profiteering motive, at the expense of quality journalism.”
You know this already, but anyway: the really big difference between a freesheet like Today vs say, NYT, is that while a great expose on NYT directly contributes to the bottom line – better stories = more newsstand buys – Today’s finances are entirely padded by pandering to the advertiser.
Its challenge is in doing this without completely turning off the readers. You may disagree, but I think the increasing readership proves it is just about on the right side of this line. That or its circulation dept is doing wonders. Either way, it is doing something right.
ST, on the other hand, might be more culpable. It should be selling newspapers based on great investigative journalism of the level you desire. But it is nowhere near world-class.
Who to blame? Maybe the undiscerning masses who buy into the generic crap on ST Page 1?
I agree with you, though, that Today standards aren’t as high as they pretend to be. That is a shame. I suspect its increasing link with CNA and newsradio is a negative factor, rather than the positive you say it should be. It is weighed down by dinosaur parent co deadweight.
Spiegel, such a concerted and biased attack on Today. Maybe you can reveal your name, so that readers can establish for themselves if you have any agenda?
@cry me a river
“Problem is, they are trying to run a business, no? What kind of business aims to flatline profit margins? Otherwise, they are a philantrophic entity, or angling hard at bankruptcy come the first shock to the industry. Neither makes sense.”
The news media is big business. But as I have pointed out, there are many directions a news organisation can take in its attempt to meet competing priorities. The bottomline is the most important from a business POV, but there is still space for other goals to be met.
The two London freesheets – the Evening Standard and Metro (distributed on the underground network, hence a close comparison with Today) – never sell their front pages. They have always used news to attract their readers, bearing in mind that even in this point in time, neither paper has a direct freesheet competitor – Evening Standard being a late afternoon to evening paper, and Metro being a morning paper.
@Annonymous
I hope you have a sense of irony, Annonymous.
My arguments will speak for themselves, and if they are flawed you are welcome to criticise and refute them. Attacking the person who makes the arguments don’t advance anything.
@Spiegel
The pot should not call the kettle black.am i right?
i hva estopped subscribing to ST cos it’s a load of BS.
And,on top of that,you got to pay extra on weekends!
For what?…the vendor told me for the advertisements!
You mean i can opt not to have the adverts which are already paid for
by the advertisers anyway?
And,btw, your news are stale,i can get faster news from the many sites in the
internet and they are for free!
Remove the speck in your own eyes before trying to remove that of the TODAY,which contrary to what you said , is in fact more entertaining.
And,yes,it’s a good read while commuting.
At least,they don’t try to pretend to be another boring ST,which despite its
long existence,it’s very much a backward drudgery!
So much for trying to sell apeice of stale bread…we are not yet starving,so you can keep it for yourself especially the “loaves”(loads) of paid advertisements which you charge us unfairly for helping you to attract the advertisers in the first place.
So,before you open your mouth the next time,take a good look in the mirror!
@MEN-TOR
I’m not sure what you are getting at, since I’m not from the ST.
In fact, if you have been following my columns and comments, the ST has been, by far, the newspaper which I have criticised the most.
This column is actually the first in which I made extensive comments about Today.
A newspaper can only be as good as the journalists it has. TODAY started with a bunch of journalists (many were ex-ST) who decided to deliver news that matter. The ST is a newspaper of record, it has the responsibility (thrust upon it) of carrying loads of government/national news. TODAY rightly decided not to go that route, when it was launched. It was highly selective of what it wanted to cover and write about. It was a strategy that worked. Busy people wanted a quick read, on their way to work. And TODAY gave them that. A bouquet of roses, so to speak. Not a field of lalang, in which you had to search for a few choice blooms. TODAY eventually turned the corner and became viable.
Today, most of the original crew of TODAY have left. The present leadership is intent on maintaining the bottom line. Nothing wrong there — but for a good read, TODAY and for that matter, any self-respecting newspaper, needs journalists with fire in their bellies.