Online – many common themes across the region, but differing usage patterns Facebook no 1 in Singapore and Malaysia, youtube and yahoo in all the top tens Govt ownership of media and quite strong regulation. Press Freedom Index, Reporters without Borders.
Baidu no 1 in China –Han character search engine Naver no 1 in Korea - Korean character search engine QQ – Chinese instant messaging program
Only a handful of news sites in the top tens across leading markets in Asia – blogger and wikipedia both more popular in most markets (outside China) than any single news website Sina 4 th in China, news websites in the region gaining prominence, but still behind US, India, Australia
As highlighted by Chart 3, there was more discussion on news websites about President Obama’s inauguration than there was in any of the other three media, including newspapers. This was a trend across five markets (Australia, China, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore) and highlights the growing importance of this media in these markets.
Financial media still heavily skewed towards the large traditional media companies, new media not leading the conversation in most markets.
Singapore Sunday Times article. One of Malaysia’s leading bloggers, Kenny Sia, noticed a particularly unflattering shot of a man
Very little change in traditional audiences over 5 years, but revenue has reduced in many markets – fewer journalists still need to keep a very large audience interested
Malaysia – Turns out the Sunday Times had taken the photo off his Facebook profile – the story went across borders and across media. Sia also runs lengthy advertorials, embedded as normal blog posts, but clearly headlined ADV
Twitter now the most mentioned, just ahead of Facebook Twitter is a more useful business communication tool than the others Twitter has received a huge amount of free publicity in other media over the past six months Traditional media journalists like to feel they are up with the latest technologies Mentioning the latest new media trend enhances the authority of the media mentioning it, while providing greater authority to the new media being mentioned Audiences are interested I hearing about the latest buzz, without having to do the research to find out themselves. Thus sites like Twitter have a very large churn in the first year of operation. “ For most of the past 12 months, Twitter has languished below 30 per cent retention.” - David Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen Online, April 2009 All of these sites however do fulfil the need for interaction, to feel a response to your ideas and input – a replacement of a local community – and that’s why they are here to stay.
Singapore – in many ways the most “international” of the Asian markets, no local websites in the top ten, media still strongly monitored by government but also high proportion of pan-regional or global media consumed. Straits Times highest circulation and most important press publication. Broadcast media controlled by government, private satellite dish ownership banned. Channel 8 the TV station with the highest peak audience. Online video critical – has a high reach and high levels of engagement – more people in Singapore view online video each month than visit social networking sites. 87% of Singapore’s internet population viewed online video in April. comScore – Average internet user spent more than 10 hours viewing online video in April. Especially important for 15-24s 1 facebook.com 2 google.com.sg 3 yahoo.com 4 youtube.com 5 google.com 6 live.com 7blogger.com 8 msn.com 9 wikipedia.org 10 go.com number of social media platforms
Reinforces the Singapore most international message. Around the time of Obama’s inauguration, while the media in other markets were focused on Obama’s likely relations with Asia and in some cases with the Muslim world, the Singaporean media were more focused on the economic ramifications internationally.
Strong government control of traditional press and broadcast media. Tight regulations on what can and can’t be reported , i.e. first 3 pages of sports news have to be local, Premier League football is further back despite having the greatest interest to Malaysians. Press publications in Bahasa Malayu, English, Chinese and Tamil. Sin Chew Jit Poh and the Star the key publications by circulation. Astro pay TV platform is strong and well funded. Expansion into overseas markets through IPTV services like FetchTV. Bernama, local Govt news wire service, an important source of content. Social networking and blogging extremely important in Malaysia – to be expanded on next
Malaysia described by PR Week global website as “the most important social media market in the world” and “a poster child for the transformative power of social media” Blogger sixth most popular site, three Opposition MPs in the top ten blog sites in Malaysia – Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang and Jeff Ooi Lina’s comment – blogs the "safest" and only avenue for oppositions to freely express their views against the govt as other media are controlled by the govt the 3 of them are from the pakatan rakyat (PKR) party Twitter not overally popular in Malaysia, 52 nd ranked in April - comScore Broadcast media controlled by government, private satellite dish ownership banned. 1 facebook.com 2 google.com.my 3 yahoo.com 4 google.com 5 youtube.com 6 blogger.com 7 live.com 8 wikipedia.org 9 msn.com 10maybank2u.com.my
Hong Kong – generally rated as the most open media market in the region (48 th in Press Freedom Index) – but not necessarily the most diverse, as traditional media forms are still highly popular Hong Kong media scene modelled on British tabloid method, however English language media decreasing in influence and relative circulation as Cantonese media, which tends to be less critical of government, increases in influence Oriental Daily News and Apple Daily press publications with the highest circulation. South China Morning Post still an influential publication. Yahoo, Microsoft and Google top 3 internet sites, Sina 8 and Baidu 9. Due to excellent infrastructure IPTV has significant penetration in HK. PCCW’s Now TV expected to grow by 37% to 750k subscribers this year. (DailyIPTV.com) comScore – As with Singapore, online video is extremely strong in HK, with 89% of HK’s internet population viewing online video in March, averaging more than 10 hours of viewing per month. Google sites, especially YouTube, drive this trend hosting over half of the watched videos. Tudou and Youku sites also popular.
China – Given size and speed of development is much faster moving from a media perspective, 3g mobile internet take up and Multi-player gaming. Press and television owned by Government authorities, major internet sites such as Baidu and Taobao are focused on search, chat and shopping. Facebook is generally blocked by the “Great Firewall of China”. Websites have different designs, huge amount of content on landing pages and links, rather than typed search. Talk radio in mainland China allows a much freer exchange of views than other media formats. In effect, talk radio has shifted the paradigm from authorities addressing the people to people addressing the authorities. For example, until 1991 the 14 million inhabitants of Shanghai were served by only one radio station—Radio Shanghai. Today, there are over 100 talk radio stations throughout the Shanghai area
There is diversity of comment in China on economic issues, some outlets were highly pessimistic, while others were more balanced about economic prospects
Thailand – A relatively traditionally focused media, with huge press circulations (Thai Rath around 1 million) but also massive television audiences – most television is owned by the Army or the Government directly. Fallen on the Press Freedom Index from 59 th in 2004 to 130 th in 2009 Split between urban and regional areas. Regional areas dominated by one or two major traditional media outlets, Bangkok and other urban areas more diverse.
Indonesia Relatively open media market, strong local focus to most media, blogging very prominent (Blogger 5 th biggest site, Wordpress 7 th ) – unlike Malaysia almost all leading blogs are lifestyle or special interest related rather than political Mobile is overtaking internet cafes as the leading access point for internet access – Yahoo Net Index June 2010 study Facebook is extremely strong in Indonesia, and Bahasa Indonesian is now the fifth greatest language used on Facebook, more than German or Italian. Source Inside Facebook
The media is no longer a one way street and as has been seen through the recent financial crisis, adverse coverage can have a serious affect on any business, no matter how fundamentally healthy the business is. The imperative is now greater than ever to take an active role in relating to both the traditional and new social media forms in a considered and well-resourced manner and with full knowledge of the media environment.
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