Nielsen: Print news still leads

Singapore- Even as online media grows from pillar to post, 75% of Singaporeans surveyed by Nielsen say newspapers are the preferred news source for them.

Amongst newspapers, The Straits Times continues to lead the pack with a daily readership of 39% and Today continues to be the second most-read daily at 17%.

The study, carried out annually, tracks consumption of various media like newspapers, terrestrial and cable television, and radio among others, and interviewed a representative sample of 4,717 people aged 15 and above , over July 2007 to June 2008.

However, the internet continues its ascent as a key medium consumed by people in Singapore, with its usage growing five percentage points from last year to 56 percent. As per Nielsen Online's Site Census, unique browsers for The Straits Times Online, has gone up to 77,000 on average per week.

"A sizable proportion of the population now counts online activities as a permanent fixture in their daily media palette alongside newspaper reading and terrestrial television viewing," Rebecca Tan, executive director for Nielsen Media Research, The Nielsen Company Singapore, said.

As for TV, eight out of 10 (down five percentage points to 78%) continue to view terrestrial television everyday, with Channel News Asia's garnering one-fifth of the audience. The figure is a slight dip of 2% compared with last year, but the channel continues to be the preferred one amongst PMEBs and those earning over S$5000.

"Cable television and the newly-introduced paid internet TV offerings have to a certain extent affected TV viewing with their niche content and flexible viewing options like viewing on-demand. The Internet further poses a strong challenge with its wealth of available entertainment content. Still, terrestrial TV is the media that reaches the mass public," Tan said.

Overall, about 66% of those surveyed tune into at least three to five kinds of media everyday, compared with the meager 9% that rely solely on single source media.