SPH Media building at Toa Payoh.

TOC reported on Wednesday (18 Jan) that staff from selected departments at SPH Media were allegedly told to “let the matter rest” at a town hall meeting by the Chief Executive Officer of SPH Media Trust (SMT), Teo Lay Lim, over actions taken against its executives connected with the misrepresentation of the circulation figures for its newspaper publications.

A scoop by Wake Up Singapore (WUSG) on 8 January shared allegations of the departures of three senior executives in SPH Media over alleged discrepancies relating to circulation numbers.

Forced by circumstances, SPH Media later acknowledged through a news report in its newspaper Straits Times (ST) that there were indeed inconsistencies in the reporting of the circulation data. This was discovered during a review of internal processes in March 2022, which looked at a period from September 2020 to March 2022.

The discrepancies included the reporting of circulation data, lapsed contracts that continued to be counted into circulation data and also copies that were printed, counted for circulation and then destroyed, as well as the double-counting of subscriptions across multiple instances. There was also a project account which was injected with additional funding over a period of time to purchase fictitious circulation.

“Certain circulation numbers were arbitrarily derived,” noted an SPH Media spokesperson. It resulted in a discrepancy of between 85,000 and 95,000 daily average copies across all titles.

According to a whistleblower, the town hall meeting was held some days after several executives were “taken to task or left the company after an internal review”. Ms Teo then informed the members who attended the special meeting of the actions taken by the company and asked them to “let the matter rest at that”.

She was said to be concerned about the matter coming to the attention of the Ministry of Communications and Information and being debated and questioned in the Singapore Parliament.

It was also highlighted that only staff from the marketing, advertising and circulation departments were told to attend the meeting. The whistleblower suggests that this implies that the CEO and the top management did not want the entire staff to know about the matter.

With regard to the incident, the Ministry for Communications and Information (MCI), which funds SMT to the tune of up to S$180 million a year, said, “MCI will undertake our own review to determine if these inconsistencies in circulation data affect the decision to fund, and the amount the Government committed to fund SPH Media. MCI expects SPH Media to fully cooperate with our review.”

Period of review while SPH was listed on SGX

The media publications of the former Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) were incorporated as SMT, a Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG), on 19 July 2021 after being cut off from SPH due to its declining revenue. They include ST and The Business Times, as well as Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.

On 13 May last year, SPH was delisted on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) after a buyover by investment vehicle Cuscaden Peak. However, prior to that and the craved out of its media publications, stock prices were ultimately affected by the annual report of SPH’s media publications and key performance index such as circulation figures.

It is unknown whether lapses simliar to the findings from the internal review of September 2020 to March 2022 are present in the years prior. It should be noted that the staff said to be involved in the matter have been employed in the organisation for many years.

A Singapore Exchange (SGX) spokesman, in response to queries, said: “We are reviewing the circulation information, including its materiality and time of occurrence.”

Double counting, legitimate

Former ST editor and SPH marketing chief Leslie Fong acknowledged in a WhatsApp message that has been circulated that when a household pays for both a print copy and a digital subscription, the Audit Bureau of Circulation Singapore (ABC) allows that sale to be counted as two copies.

Mr Fong, who later confirmed with TODAY the veracity of the message, added: “In some other countries, if the digital subscription covers an e-paper or PDF (Portable Document Format) version, the publisher can and often does claim a count of three. SPH kept it as two.

So this is legitimate ‘double counting’, not cheating or inflating.”

Mr Fong, whose 46-year stint with SPH also included 15 years as editor of ST, as well as three years as editor of the Chinese-language Shin Min Daily News, said that since more than two decades ago, the ABC has accepted as legitimate that bulk sales to advertisers for free distribution can be counted in its circulation figures even if only half of the copies were picked up.

“That bulk sale of, say, 1,000 copies of the ST to, for example, a shopping mall for free distribution to its shoppers be counted as 1,000 circulated copies,” he said in his message that has been circulated.

This has been industry practice endorsed by every external auditor the company has used and every SPH main board led by the likes of former Cabinet Minister Lim Kim San or former president Tony Tan, Mr Fong said.

It is said in SPH’s annual report that the total print and digital circulation numbers reported are in accordance with the rules set by ABC in 2016.

TOC wrote to ABC last week to ask if its rules have been violated by SPH Media and whether actions would be taken against it but has yet to receive a reply.

Hong Kong authorities arrest people who falsify circulation figures

Meanwhile, it was noted that in 1997, six people were arrested in an alleged scheme to falsely inflate the circulation figures of two English-language newspapers in Hong Kong.

Those arrested were suspected of boosting the figures of the Hong Kong Standard and its sister paper, the Sunday Standard, for at least three years.

Among the six arrested by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), three were senior officials — a former official, the circulation supervisor and a former circulation supervisor.

The commission noted that 10,000-23,000 excess figures were added to the circulation number to deceive stakeholders. The figures were certainly much less than the reported 85,000-95,000 excess figures acknowledged by SPH Media.

Nevertheless, in Singapore, the authorities have, so far, not decided to arrest anyone, and it is not known publicly if any police investigation has commenced into the matter.

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