Today daily launches online edition on 1 Jul 2003

fpd.gov.sg  A new website launched on 12 Jan 2002 by the Films and Publications Department (FPD) with the aim of providing a user-friendly resource for movie-goers in Singapore. FPD monitors films and publications in Singapore.

LittleSpeck.com is a news/information website on trends in Singapore and south-east asia.

mda.gov.sg   is the Web site of the new Media Development Authority, formed by the merger of the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA), the Films and Publications Department (FPD) and the Singapore Film Commission (SFC).

An international edition of London-based business newspaper Financial Times for its 5,000 readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia is now being printed in Singapore by Singapore Press Holdings. The edition was previously printed in Senai in Malaysia.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) bought four state-of-the-art printing machines at a cost of S$123 million in 2000. The new machines were installed in February 2002. When operational at the end of 2003, the fully automated KBA presses, which can ink 4,480 pages a second, will boost the company's overall output by 40% to 10,880 pages per second and allow more colour pages for SPH's newspapers. (Straits Times 12 Sep 2003 H7)

  Veteran journalist Paul Jansen, 49, of The Straits Times was named acting editor of Streats yesterday. He takes over from Mr Ken Salleh Jr, who is being redeployed within Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Streats underwent a revamp on 18 Nov 2002 and its print run was increased to 280,000 copies a day, with 120,000 copies distributed to homes. (Straits Times 18 Dec 2002) (H2)

 Singapore Press Holdings' (SPH) headquarters in Toa Payoh will be renamed News Centre, like its former headquarters. (Straits Times 11 Nov 2002) (H3)

  Upset by what he viewed as a "vicous and personal attack" on him in two media articles, Comfort managing director GOH Chee Wee has directed that Business Times (BT) journalist Christopher TAN be barred from all company events. (Straits Times 3 Oct 2002) (3)

  An AC Nielson survey done between July 2001 and June 2002 shows that newspaper readership, boosted by the recent appearance of free sheets Streats and Today, has risen to 87 per cent of Singapore's teen and adult population. Over the same period in the previous two years, 82 per cent of that potential market of three million people read newspapers regularly. The Straits Times captured 43 per cent of readership while Lianhe Zaobao and Lianhe Wanbao posted 22 per cent and 18 per cent respectively. The report sampled a total of 4,200 Singaporeans aged 15 and above using face-to-face interviews. (Straits Times 2 Oct 2002) (H5)

  The Straits Times has been named Newspaper of the Year by Sydney-based Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association (Panpa) which groups together over 300 newspaper publishing companies and suppliers from 14 countries in the Pacific Rim, including Australia and New Zealand. (Straits Times 15 Aug 2002 (1)

  The New Paper Big Walk held yesterday attracted 68,950 participants. (Straits Times 20 May 2002) (H4)

  Today newspaper launches 50-cent weekend edition on 27 Apr 2002.

  Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has launched a "stick-on" advertisement in its morning dailies, such as The Straits Times, The Business Times and Lianhe Zaobao. These Post-It advertisements can be pulled off the newspaper and stuck on a fridge, board or any other surface. (Straits Times 18 Mar 2002) (H2)

  Streats, the free commuter newspaper, will have a formal face tomorrow. Besides a new purple masthead, there will be more pages devoted to financial news. About 230,000 copies of Streats are printed every day by its publisher Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which launched it on 4 Sep 2000. (Straits Times 17 Feb 2002)(6)

  The last edition of The Straits Times will roll out of the mustard-coloured Times House building at the corner of Kim Seng Road and River Valley Road as the newspaper moves out to new premises after 44 years. Their new office is a 110,256-sq-ft complex in Toa Payoh North. (The Straits Times 11 Feb 2002)(L4,5) 

  Free commuter tabloid newspaper Streats will be published from Monday to Friday from next week, said Singapore Press Holdings yesterday. Streats editor Ken Jalleh, Jr said that human traffic during rush hour was lower on Saturdays than weekdays. (Straits Times 13 Dec 2001) (H6)

  The English, Malay and Chinese newsrooms in the Singapore Press Holdings Group will move to 1000 Toa Payoh North by Chinese New Year in February next year. (Straits Times 30 Nov 2001) (H4)

  Within a year of its launch by SPH Holdings, STREATS has captured 14 per cent of readership. This means that more than 400,000 people are flipping through its pages regularly. Today has 346,000 readers, or 11 per cent of the pie shared by the 10 local dailies available here. The figures were released on Tuesday by leading market research firm ACNielson Media International in its annual Media Index survey. Other findings showed that The Straits Times remains the dominant paper here with 44 per cent of readership. The English daily reaches out to 1.3 million people aged 15 and above. Lianhe Zaobao follows closely with 22 per cent. (Straits Times 5 Oct 2001) (H4)

  Starting today, readers of The Straits Times and The New Paper can get video clips, music files and other information related to articles they read simply by calling the Personal Infotainment Centre (PIC) service on their mobile phones, regardless of which telephone company, or telco, they use. PIC numbers start with 88* and appear either at the end of selected articles or in info boxes. The PIC service costs you nothing, apart from the usual airtime call charges. By calling the PIC number, you get weblinks to the desired information sent to your personal folder at www.pic.com.sg. Short news items, soccer scores for example, can also be sent via SMS to your mobile phone.(Straits Times 15 Aug 2001)(1)

  The Straits Times newspaper comes as a narrower-width paper from today. The new page width is 35.5 cm - 2.6cm or 6.6 per cent narrower - while the page length remains unchanged at 58 cm. In terms of news presentation, The Straits Times will move from its eight-column format to a new seven-column grid. There will be no change to the paper's sections or text size. (Straits Times 10 Aug 2001)(1)

  The findings of a survey conducted between February and April 2001 by students of the Singapore Polytechnic's school of business show that 84 per cent of respondents said they read The Straits Times regularly. The New paper came in second with 58 per cent. The Sunday Times clinched third place with 48 per cent. The survey of 800 people aged 15 to 30 who were interviewed in the streets aimed to find out where young people get their news and what they think of the news sources. Two in five surveyed were students. Almost half said they preferred the print media, with 37 per cent choosing television, 8 per cent citing radio and 7 per cent preferring the Internet. (Straits Times 2 Aug 2001)(H4) 

  Mediawatch Community, an independent local press watchdog, has been given a licence to operate as a non-profit company by the Registry of Companies and Businesses. The licence was given on 19 Jun 2001. The watchgroup was set up by a group of intellectuals, non-government organisation leaders and former journalists in March to raise media standards and encourage fair representation of alternative views. (Straits Times 3 Jul 2001)

  Singapore Press Holding's (SPH) daily tabloid Project Eyeball folded after only 10 months because of intense media competition and wrong pricing, Minister for Information and the Arts LEE Yock Suan said last night. "Unfortunately, it was difficult for it to survive once the free newspapers, Streats and Today, hit the streets and were financed by advertisements," he said. He also felt that the cover price at 80 cents for Project Eyeball, which lost S$13.3 million since it was launched in August 2000, was too high. "It may have a better chance if it was priced lower." He said he regretted the paper's closure because the quality was "quite good", especially the writing. But it was writing for too small a market, the Net-savvy readers he said. Mr LEE said only newspapers with a daily run of 350,000 copies could appeal to advertisers. (Straits Times 3 Jul 2001)