Newspaper of the Year

What is today's conduit for news is used to wrap tomorrow's fish and chips - or in the Singapore context, kacang putih. So news providers have to keep real - staying as current as possible and breaking news as it happens, when it happens, to stay in the game. Debbie Cai reports.

Ask anyone on the street which is the most popular newspaper in Singapore and the answer will most definitely be The Straits Times (ST), afterall, it is our flag-bearer. And indeed, marketing and advertising professionals Marketing surveyed for this feature article concurred, voting ST as the runaway option to advertise on.

In this feature, we will break the results down and give you a better understanding of which groups of people prefer the ST, whether their geographical scope of job responsibilities have much to do with it, or the type of company the work for and so on.

But this piece is about so much more than just the ST - we will delve into the survey results for nine other local titles and three regional ones, analysing the reasons why each achieved the ranking they did.

The newspapers featured got here for their mix of swift, objective and accurate reporting, thus attracting readers and consequentially, advertising interest and advertisers. But each title has its own unique target audience, tone, and content and while they may all cover current news, the flavour and texture of their coverage does differ and therein lies the challenge of finding the right one with which to place precious marketing dollars with.

Last year, in a consolidated Singapore Top Media special annual edition where the preferred TV, magazines, newspapers and online media amongst marketers were spotlighted, the top five domestic newspapers revealed were the ST, Today, Business Times (BT), Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) and The New Paper (TNP). They have reprised their positions again in this year's survey.

Likewise with last year's top regional newspapers, the Wall Street Journal Asia (WSJA), the International Herald Tribune (IHT) and the Financial Times (FT), the three also remain at the top of the table, a testament to the strength of their publications.

Top 10 domestic newspapers results breakdown

Singapore's leading newspaper The Straits Times accrued a majority 36.61% of all votes cast in this survey, making it the undeniably most popular newspaper for brands to advertise with. Led by editor-in-chief Patrick Daniel, the ST boasts a daily average circulation of 381,354 (audited), which is a whopping 38.67% more than the second highest circulating newspaper (unaudited), Today.

To maintain its lead and attract even more readers, the award-winning paper introduced weekly supplements such as Digital Life, Urban and Mind Your Body to complement the ST, as well as IN and Little Red Dot to cater to young readers in schools.

It also successfully launched a parallel brand, STOMP, which is an interactive portal championing citizen journalism. By its first anniversary this year on 15 June, over 70 million page views for the site were reportedly recorded.

According to the survey, the top five domestic newspapers - ST, Today, BT, Lianhe Zaobao and TNP - garnered significantly more votes than the rest, with the ST garnering 1,051 total votes and the rest achieving votes numbering in the hundreds. Subsequently, the rest of the titles saw support of less than 100 votes per title.

The Straits Times

A total of 779 survey respondents voted the ST as their first choice, a far cry from the 127 who voted Today in first place (16.3% of ST's). Overall, free tabloid-sized newspaper Today scored only 28.63% of ST's total votes. Not surprisingly, it scored more votes than the ST in 2nd and 3rd place.

Breaking down the types of respondents who voted for the ST, the survey saw 313 1^st votes from agency-side and 466 1^st votes from client-side, and overall, it saw 391 agency-side professionals and 660 client-side ones voted for the title.

Today

Led by editorial director PN Balji, Today seems to compete with the BT for advertising interest, with respondents voting the former a mere 23 votes more than the latter as their most preferred newspaper title. However when it comes to 2^nd and 3^rd rank, Today is markedly more popular than BT.

In most of the 10 industry group categories Today was voted in 2^nd place except in PR and Travel Transport & Transport, in which more respondents voted the paper 3^rd than in the other two positions. In Business Services, respondents were split equally between 2^nd and 3^rd, with each ranking garnering 42.86% of all votes cast in the category.

Cut by job functions, the survey showed Today was also mostly voted 2^nd but ad agency creatives, PR consultants, and communications/PR/events managers from the client side, tended to vote it almost equally in 2^nd and 3^rd place. Brand/product managers on the client side in particular voted it almost equally in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place.

Business Times

The majority of both client and agency respondents voted BT placed it in 2^nd place - 40% and 46.62% respectively - although the total number of votes cast from agency side was half that of client side (133 compared to 260).

Positioned as SE Asia's leading business daily, BT is headed by editor Alvin Tay and is targeted at a relatively niche audience of investors, managers and businessmen, thus explaining its 29,827 circulation (audited) - which is the smallest circulation of the top 10 newspapers, sans the two weeklies.

The paper clocked 13.69% of all votes cast in the survey, and seemed to have the most clout with respondents from the Property Construction & Utilities industry. Expectedly, the large majority of respondents from Business Services voted BT in their top two choices.

Again while most respondents preferred to rank BT in 2^nd place, respondents holding CEO, MD, GM, VP and marketing director positions on the client side equally voted the newspaper in the three ranks.

Another interesting finding was that slightly more respondents with regional job responsibilities voted BT 1^st than Today, possibly due to the former's business focus and Singapore's position as a regional hub for companies. Similarly, more foreign respondents (50%) voted BT 1^st than in any other rank.

Lianhe Zaobao

On the Chinese newspapers front, the leading paper is obviously Lianhe Zaobao (4^th in the top 10), which boasts an audited circulation of 181,735 and is helmed by editor Lim Jim Koon.

Surprisingly, a mere 14 respondents voted it in 1st place, but overall it justified its position on the list by clocking 419 votes - 14.59% of all votes cast. This is actually actually more than 3rd placed BT but LHZB loses out in terms of total point accrued. It only gets 605 points while BT gets 767.

Only 1 out of 166 votes cast by agency respondents were for LHZB in 1^st place while a majority of 92 were cast in 3^rd place. A similar scenario was true for client respondents, as only 13 of 253 voted it 1^st and 155 voted it 3^rd.

Almost all industry groups surveyed voted LHZB in 3^rd place, however, ad agency creatives were perfectly split in the middle, with equal votes for 2^nd and 3^rd place. Likewise for most job functions, the Chinese leader was voted 3^rd but exceptions were the case with an equal number of agency CEO/MD/GMs voting it 2^nd and 3^rd; and more agency creatives voting it 2^nd than 3^rd.

The New Paper

The last of the English language dailies featured, The New Paper, was mostly voted in 3^rd place and attracted a total of 7.94% of all votes cast.

While all other industry groups voted TNP mostly 3^rd, the Education & Training group stood out, with 31.58% voting the title 1^st. TNP also garnered more votes from creatives than the two newspapers preceeding it on the list (LHZB and BT).

Interestingly, more than double the number respondents with local responsibilities voted TNP in 1st place than LHZB, although the 2^nd and 3^rd place votes for TNP were markedly less. Also, more male respondents voted TNP first than LHZB.

Lianhe Wanbao

Downwards from 6^th position in this top 10 list, the votes cast per newspaper becomes too minute to analyse but there are still a handful of noteworthy points to make. For example, for Lianhe Wanbao (LHWB), the second highest voted Chinese newspaper in the survey, it seemed client-side marketing managers showed the most support, putting in exponentially more votes than those with other job functions. Also, more females voted LHWB than males, with the number of votes differing by 29.17%.

My Paper

Singapore Press Holdings' newest newspaper, the collaborative free Chinese tabloid My Paper is ranked 7^th on the list, and competes with LHWB as the second most preferred Chinese newspaper amongst advertisers. According to the survey, client-side communications, PR, events, brand and product managers tended to vote it in second place and LHWB in third.

My Paper got more votes from the respondents with regional responsibility perhaps because it is bilingual and has done a good job of getting its name out to regional clients. Also, more female respondents prefer to put money with My Paper than male respondents, with a 30.43% difference between the number of votes from the two camps.

Shin Min Daily News

Shin Min, which rounds up the Chinese newspaper representation on the list, clocked in at 8^th place. It drew with My Paper on points but it got one more vote than the latter. Interestingly, no one from media agencies voted Shin Min at all in their top three newspaper choices.

The Edge

In 9^th place was English business language news weekly The Edge, which actually got a lot more votes from clients (73.33%) than from agencies. It also scored twice as many votes from local companies than foreign companies.

The Sunday Times

Rounding up the top 10 was SPH's The Sunday Times, which spectacularly scored more 1^st votes than Shin Min, My Paper and LHWB combined, but lost out in total votes scored - a testament to the weekly's top of mind recall amongst respondents.

Regional newspapers

Wall Street Journal Asia

The WSJA is by far the most popular regional newspaper for Singapore-based marketing and advertising professionals, with 2^nd placed IHT scoring only 40.7% of the former's total votes.

While its audited circulation (80,601) may not be anywhere near that of the ST (381,354), the 31-year-old paper does have the wingspan of 15 bureaus across Asia. Headed by editor John Bussey, the paper received relatively equal support from both agency and client-side respondents in this survey.

It has to be noted that 158 votes were cast for WSJA by local companies as opposed to 129 by foreign ones - an interesting result, underscoring the growing number of Singapore companies venturing into the region.

While in most of the industry categories the WSJA scored more votes than the IHT, 44.44% of respondents from the Travel Transport & Travel businesses voted for IHT than WSJA. The WSJA was also less popular than IHT amongst agency creatives. On the flip side, respondents from Financial Services and IT & Telecommunications overwhelmingly preferred WSJA to IHT.

International Herald Tribune

The IHT, which has a larger audited circulation of 88,368 than WSJA's 80,601, seemed slightly more popular amongst agency types, garnering 56.35% of votes from them. It was so popular with creative professionals in particular, that the votes it got from them were double that of WSJA, Financial Times (3^rd place), South China Morning Post (4^th place) and Business Times (5^th place).

70% of respondents who voted IHT held regional responsibilities in their roles, while 87.31% of all votes for the paper were from Singaporean respondents.

Financial Times

The 3^rd regional paper on the list, the FT, sports an audited circulation of 40,338 for and was quite uniformly voted in the survey as respondents' 1^st and 2^nd choices, although on the agency side, less than half of those who voted IHT 1st voted FT 1st.

While most people prefer IHT and WSJA, client VPs and marketing directors voted IHT and FT almost exactly as much, which bodes as good news for the FT in terms of attracting advertising dollars.

Overall, this survey can be seen as one of advertising intention and it bodes very well for the top 10 domestic and three regional newspapers we have spotlighted. While ad revenue for newspapers in 2007 was earlier forecasted by ZenithOptimedia's AdEx forecasts study to see minimal growth, it remains to be seen whether the prediction will come true.

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Respondents' breakdown

A survey universe of 11,077 professionals were invited to fill out an online survey, of which 11.6% or 1,285 responded. Of these, 1,189 surveys were valid. There were 759 client-side respondents and 430 agency-side ones - of which 292 were from creative agencies, 70 were from media planning and buying agencies and 68 were from public relations consultancies. Universe breakdowns were within a percent either way of the respondent breakdowns.

Responses on the agency and client-side were taken as a whole and split into company origin, region of responsibility (local or regional/international), and job function. Agency-side respondents were split by job function in terms of whether they held the CEO, managing director or general manager posts, or whether they were advertising creatives, advertising account servicing staff, media planning and buying professionals, and public relations consultants. Client-side job functions were split according to CEO, managing director, vice president, director of marketing or brand/public relations and events, and brand and product manager positions.

Aside from this, client-side responses were further split up by industry group. 10 groups were identified, namely - business services, consumer products, education and training, financial services, government and community services, IT and telecommunications, motor vehicles, property construction and utilities, retail, and travel transport and transport. Finally, all respondents were identified by gender and country of origin.

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How top newspapers were determined

We believe this research is as close as it gets to giving you an accurate indication of how much mindshare each newspaper possesses with media players and clients alike because of the unbiased way that it was conducted. Respondents of this survey were simply asked to list by descending order of preference, the three titles they would advertise with for every category, with no indication as to what their choices should be.

Ranking was determined by the number of points each newspaper chalked up. The title ranked first received three points, the one ranked second received two points and the other ranked third received one point. These points were then eventually tallied and tabulated as a percentage of points within each category, then ranked overall by descending order.

While there were intricate differences in the way clients and agencies ranked the various newspapers, the rankings were determined by the number of votes each title garnered overall.

The survey was carried out by full service research firm BDM Intelligence (BDMi) using its database of media professionals, creative, public relations and media planning and buying agencies and clients from across all industries in Singapore. It was conducted between 5 and 16 March 2007, with the results delivered by BDMi on 13 April 2007.

It is one thing to think your title is doing well and gaining revenue, but another to find out the details of the types of audiences that have intent to purchase either for the first time or for the 10^th - who knows, you may be surprised.