SPH Media is one of Asia’s leading media companies, reporting on Singapore’s news and broadcasting it on an international stage. Their journey is nothing short of unique as they’ve grown to become one of the most innovative companies in the region.

During the recent INMA’s Asia/Pacific News Media Summit, Rajiv Malhotra, head of digital media products, offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of how SPH Media functions on the back-end.

“SPH Media has been published in Asia for over 180 years… . With an average of 110 million pageviews and 10.8 million followers across social media, our reach is vast,” Malhotra said. “Our mission is clear: to be the trusted source of news for Singapore and Asia.”

SPH Media has products across multiple different media formats like radio, digital, and print, all presented in the many languages available across Singapore, including Tamil, Mandarin, and English. There are 42 different brands that make up the company, each comprising a different niche — vernacular media makes up the “forefront of [their] strategy.”

Vernacular media is defined as “media content that is produced and delivered in the local languages and dialects of a specific region or community.” Malhotra cited the decline of multilingualism across the world, in favour of people learning English, leading to less access in specific languages for people who are only monolingual.

They want to keep the connections of different communities alive through the celebration of them with media that meets their culture’s needs. This is also done through offering more content digitally and on social media. They seek to overcome linguistic challenges, as well as challenges with segregation by age — whereby younger people are often excluded from print, and older are excluded from digital.

“We place a strong emphasis on cultural and technological accessibility,” Malhotra said, discussing how the company places a strong focus on making content relevant for distinct cultures.

But, as he said, not everything is focused on technology. They also play a role in the community — through events and direct efforts to reach out to those around them. They also implemented new features on their Web site, which were tailored to bridging the gap of language by helping with the translation of articles or offering people ways to learn parts of new languages through their daily word quiz.

“The strong success of the quiz … shows there is still a strong desire to preserve mother tongue languages, even among younger generations,” Malhotra said. He discussed how the shift to social media content can be crucial in making content relevant and accessible to all of their readers.

SPH Media’s mobile platforms are designed to be highly interactive, drawing people back to read more content and to engage more with programmes like quizzes that draw on the need to learn more about their language.

“We remain committed to serve the diverse communities that make up Singapore.”

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