Online Media of the Year: Biz & Fin No. 5 Business Times Online

Category: Business & Finance

Owned by: Singapore Press Holdings Group

Deputy Editor (Digital Media): Felix Soh

Deputy Editor (BT Online): Joannah Perez

Editor: Yeong Ah Seng 

Displaying the sharp sense of business acumen and foresight characteristics of the business professionals whom it reaches daily, the Business Times, which was launched in 1976, took the lead in becoming the first English-language newspaper in Asia to go on the world wide web in 1995. Since then, it has firmly established its print, as well as online version - Business Times Online (BT Online), as Southeast Asia's leading business daily. One needs to look no further than the latter's overall ranking as the number-five website that marketers would most want to advertise with in the business site category of Online Media of the Year to confirm that fact.

Like its print contemporary, the Business Times, BT Online brings to its readers a comprehensive and concise package of corporate, financial, economic and political news with a key focus on Singapore and Asian regions. However, developments elsewhere in the world are also covered in considerable depth given Singapore's global business interests. BT Online, together with other SPH online websites draws a collective page-view of 100 million with six million unique visitors monthly.

Aside from hard business news, BT Online also provides incisive analysis and commentaries from the veterans and experts at the top of their trade. Updated from 4am daily, the website is the real deal for busy and upwardly mobile business professionals who need to be equipped with ammunition in the form of knowledge to make the right decisions in the fast-paced corporate jungle. BT Online's recent clients included Singapore Sports Council, Ernst and Young, Saxo Capital Markets and City Index Asia.

In step with its local news slant, BT Online was the choice of more respondents of local origin than foreign ones, with votes from the former far outstripping the latter. In confirmation of the observation, respondents from companies of local origin also gave more votes to BT Online than those from foreign ones, with majority of respondents of both categories of company origin ranking BT Online 1^st. Similarly, respondents with local responsibilities were more likely to entrust their advertising needs to BT Online than respondents with regional responsibilities, with thrice the number of the former voting for BT Online than the latter. 

Client-side respondents registered a higher number of votes for BT Online than agency-side respondents did, with creative advertising agencies preferring BT Online the most amongst agency-side respondents categorised by industry group. It was hardly surprising to find that respondents from the financial services sector favoured BT Online the most, closely followed by equal preference by those in the business, consumer product, education and training, property construction and utilities sectors.

By client job function, marketing managers had the most marked preference for BT Online, registering at least five times more votes than any other respondents performing any other job function. This number also superseded that of yahoo.com and cnn.com's votes from marketing managers by at least 4%, sealing BT Online's credo with this particular group of client-side respondents.

By agency job function, it seemed that those performing account-servicing function at agencies seemed to favour BT Online the most, followed by media buyers and CEOs - good news for BT Online since these are most likely to be the decision-makers in determining which advertising spots to buy.

In any case, BT online supporters can walk away justified in their trust for the Business Times brand name, taking into account its performance at the 6^th Annual Asia Media Awards held by Ifra Asia - a regional association for the publishing industry, where it bagged Silver for its widely-read Watch Supplement in March this year.