NST TURNS TO EDDIE' FOR HELP

Eddie H'ng Seng Poh, the new Director of Circulation at the NSTP. Will he be able to check the slide of the circulation of the New Straits Times?

Eddie is more of a salesman selling products on the shelves. But selling newspaper could be a different ball game altogether.

But a salesman is always a salesman. Who is Eddie? According to an email, Eddie was:

1) Danone/Kraft foods National Sales Manager Malaysia
2) Danone/Kraft Foods Sales Director in Taiwan
3) Dutch Lady Malaysia General Sales Manager
4) F&N Dairies Channel Development Manager 

STAR'S PROFIT SOARS TO RM50 MILLION

The Star has announced a 52 per cent jump in its profit for Q2 this year.

It was a hefty jump considering the decline in circulation of print media nationwide due to the popularity of alternative media and internet social networks.

RM50.08 million profit is a healthy level and Star should be commended for its rationalisation programme which include introducing new contents and shutting down some of its branches.

Read about Star's profit HERE.

STAR'S CLEMENT HII THE HIGHEST PAID MEDIA DIRECTOR

Star Executive Deputy Chairman Dato' Clement Hii emerged as the highest paid media director in Malaysia.

A survey by the Malaysia Business magazine ranked Clement in 13th place among the luminaries in the Malaysia business world earning between RM5.25 million-RM5.3 million, just above Air Asia boss Tony Fernandes listed to have received between RM5 million and RM6 million. Read the story HERE.

Those above Clement are familiar faces. They include Lim Kok Thay, the Prime Minister's younger brother, Nazir Razak, Vincent Tan, Rozali Ismail of Puncak Niaga, Francis Yeop and Sandip Das of Maxis.

ADEX HEADS NORTH

Adex In Malaysia Up 22 Per Cent At RM3.5 Billion In First Half 2010


KUALA LUMPUR, August 17 (Bernama) -- Advertising expenditure (adex) in Malaysia breached the RM3.5 billion mark for the first time in the first half of 2010, according to Carat Media Services (M) Sdn Bhd.

The figure marked a year-on-year growth of 22 per cent, said the company using data sourced from Nielsen.

Month-on-month adex growth stood at six per cent, at RM681,000 from RM644,000 previously, Carat Media said in a statement today.

"Of significance is Internet adex growth of 81 per cent between May and June 2010," it said.

Among the top adex categories, mobile line services continued to be the biggest spender with RM150.2 million, up by 12 per cent year-on-year, followed by face care-woman at RM101.9 million, government institutions-local at RM99.6 million, and hair shampoo and conditioner at RM88.1 million.

The first half adex looked promising for newspapers which recorded a growth of 18 per cent compared to five per cent of adex contraction in the same period last year, Carat Media said.

English papers grew a significant 19 per cent year-on-year while Chinese papers grew 22 per cent with all titles increasing their adex and adex for Malay papers continued to be strong, it said.

Free-to-air TV recorded the most impressive TV adex growth of 29 per cent year-on-year to reach RM1.3 billion in first half of 2010, Carat Media said.

Radio adex grew 24 per cent to reach RM184.1 million in the first six months of this year, the company said.

"Of significance is the performance of Chinese-language stations within the top 10 station. Chinese radio stations account for 37 per cent share, marginally lower than Malay-language radio stations (38 per cent)," it said. -- BERNAMA

CIRCULATION HEAD OF NST REMOVED

New Straits Times Press Berhad has removed its head of circulation Azman Che Chin and replaced him with Eddie H'ng Seng Poh following the free fall in circulation of its flagship newspaper, the New Straits Times.

Industry sources said Azman was removed and assigned to the Properties Division after NST's circulation dipped below 100,000 copies recently.

Interestingly, mainstream newspaper companies have stopped publishing reports by Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) on their circulation figures.

The last report published by the newspapers was the circulation for the first 6 months of 2009 when NST was hit hard at the newsstand when its circulation dropped to 116,411 copies while its rival the Star fell marginally to 293,112 copies.

Industry analysts believed there was no turning back for the NST unless serious efforts were made to revamp its contents.

The analysts lay the blame of NST's poor sales on its contents and that it had nothing to do with its distribution network as the company's other newspaper Metro had done extremely well in the Malay market.

The management of  the NSTP is headed by its CEO Dato' Anthony Bujang while the editorial contents of the newspaper is handled by its Group Managing Editor Dato' Zainul Arifin Mohammed Isa.

MALAYSIAN DON'T TRUST MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Some 60pc distrust mainstream media, poll shows

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Six out of 10 Malaysians don’t trust the mainstream media while only one out of five has access to online news, according to a synopsis of a recent survey here.


The June 27 to July 25 Merdeka Center survey commissioned by a research organisation showed that 57 per cent of Malays polled said they did not trust reports in the mainstream media, while 33 per cent trusted the media and 10 per cent said they did not know.

As for the Chinese community, 58 per cent said they did not trust the mainstream media, 30 per cent trusted and 12 per cent did not know.

A total 590 Chinese and 413 Malays as well as five focus group discussions with Chinese voters in Peninsula Malaysia were involved in the survey.

The findings will provide sober reading for many mainstream media organisations. Recent circulation figures show that English and Malay-language newspapers like New Straits Times, The Star, Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia have all suffered significant drop in circulation this year compared to 2009, with some as severe as 20 per cent.

Privately, newspaper executives note that partisan political coverage has hurt sales.

A man browses through newspapers at a shop. The circulation figures of English and Malay-language newspapers have dropped significantly. — Picture by Jack OoiThe survey results also showed that access to the alternative media remained low with 80 per cent of the respondents said newspapers were still their main source of information.

Only 21 per cent of those surveyed had read the news on the Internet over the past one month but most were found reading the online version of the mainstream media.

The majority of the respondents also said that they did not have a strong trust in the alternative media although many agreed that they are more trustworthy.

Comments from the focus group discussions also showed that many felt that there is limited media freedom in the country because of the practice of censorship.

Some participants in the focus groups also pointed out that Malay-language newspapers were the most biased.

Two political scientists said the survey results were not entirely unexpected.

“This is probably the group that has not registered as voters or are not bothered with what is happening in the country,” said political scientist Dr Sivamurugan Pandian when asked about the survey results.

“Or maybe because of the high expectation after 2008, they might have become fence-sitters,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

“And it could be also there has been too much politicking, that people are getting tired of them,” he added.

Sivamurugan explained that the failure of both Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) parties to explain their political agenda could have resulted in the outcome.

UKM’s Dr Agus Yusoff agreed, saying that ownership of media alone would not guarantee the success of the political parties.

“In managing information, managing media, the messages, both sides would have to work harder now,” Agus told The Malaysian Insider.

“If they go on spinning, sensationalising issues they will be drowned,” said the political scientist.

“Information is just a click away, whether it is mainstream media or the Internet people do not believe everything they read. They know how to judge,” he added.

LIFTED FROM MALAYSIAN INSIDER. Read HERE