Media of Singapore

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The media of Singapore play an important role in Singapore, one of the key strategic media centres in the Asia-Pacific region ^[1]. This is in line with the government's aggressive push to establish Singapore as a media hub in the world under the Media 21 plan launched in 2002 ^[2]. Comprising of the publishing, print, broadcasting, film, music, digital and IT media sectors, the media industry collectively employed about 38,000 people and contributed 1.56% to Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001 with an annual turnover of S$10 billion. The industry grew at an average rate of 7.7% annually from 1990 to 2000, and the government seeks to increase its GDP contribution to 3% by 2012.

Contents 1 Content regulation 2 Television and radio 3 Newspapers 4 Notes 5 See also

[edit] Content regulation

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts is the government's regulatory body that imposes and enforces regulation over locally-produced media content. It also decides on the availability of published media from abroad.

These extensive regulations are deemed to be overly-oppressive by some. In its Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2004, Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 147 out of 167. Most of the local media are directly or indirectly controlled by the government through shareholdings of these media entities by the state's investment arm Temasek Holdings, and are often perceived as pro-government ^[3]. While there are relatively little signs of direct state intervention in media content, it is believed that self-censorship by the media exerts a greater influence.

[edit] Television and radio

Main article: Broadcasting in Singapore

State-owned MediaCorp operates all seven free-to-air terrestrial local television channels licensed to broadcast in Singapore, as well as 14 radio channels. Radio and television stations are all government-owned entities. All seven television channels are owned by MediaCorp, while radio stations are operated either by MediaCorp, the Singapore Armed Forces Reservist Association (SAFRA) or UnionWorks.

[edit] Newspapers

Main article: List of newspapers in Singapore

There are a total of 16 newspapers in active circulation. Daily newspapers are published in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

The print media is dominated by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), publisher of the flagship English-language daily, The Straits Times. SPH publishes all other daily newspapers with the exception of Today, which is owned by MediaCorp.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• Censorship in Singapore
• Cinema of Singapore
• Communications in Singapore
• List of Singapore-related topics