SPH Media Trust roping in legal advisers to investigate inflated circulation numbers 'more fully'

SINGAPORE — SPH Media Trust (SMT), a non-for-profit firm that owns national dailies The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, said that it has tasked its audit and risk committee to investigate its inflated circulation numbers "more fully" and roping in legal advisers as well, with findings to be reported to the public trust's board.

In a statement on Friday (Jan 20), SPH Media also gave more details of its earlier announcement that circulation numbers of SPH Media titles were found to have been overstated by between 10 and 12 per cent during an internal review from September 2020 to March 2022.

Some of the preliminary findings from this review were:

• There was an overstatement of 49,000 average daily copies of news titles that was recorded as circulation numbers but not distributed. Most were digital copies. Amounting to about 5 per cent of total daily circulation, SPH Media said that these were of "particular concern"
• There was an inflation of 5,000 average daily copies recorded after contracts had lapsed
• Another 17,000 average daily copies were recorded as a result of a failure to check that reported circulation numbers were accurate against actual usage tracked in SPH Media's system
• There is a possible discrepancy of 19,000 average daily copies, which included a barter arrangement with another publisher

SPH Media said that its audit and risk committee has been tasked to investigate these points and "consider what further steps, if any, need to be taken".

It has also commissioned legal advisers to assist in the investigation and report its findings directly to the board of SPH Media Holdings.

In response to SPH Media's statement, the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) said that it has started its own probe to determine if the inconsistencies in circulation data would have affected the Government's decision to fund SPH Media, as well as the amount it committed to fund.

The Government last stated that SPH Media will receive public funding of up to S$180 million a year over five years and the company is required to provide half-yearly progress updates.

"We have not disbursed any of these funds to SPH Media to date. We will share our findings in due course," MCI said.

The ministry also asked the board of SPH Media Holdings to share the findings of its audit and risk committee's probe when it is ready and added that it "expects full cooperation on this".

The committee is chaired by Mr Max Loh, former managing partner of EY (Ernst & Young) Asean and Singapore. It also includes law firm Allen & Gledhill's co-head of corporate mergers and acquisitions Lim Mei, and MR Philip Lee, HSBC Singapore bank's vice-chairman of global banking for Southeast Asia.

In the media industry, circulation figures are an important benchmark for setting the price of advertising.

As to why it started a review to assess circulation data in the first place, SPH Media said that it did so after the transfer of Singapore Press Holdings Limited's media business so that it could review the data that it took over.

"Circulation data reported in Singapore Press Holdings Limited's previous annual reports was stated to be in accordance with the rules set by the Audit Bureau of Media Consumption Singapore," the company said. 

"But as digital media and advertising grew, quantifying print circulation became less relevant, (the bureau) ceased operations in Singapore in 2019."

This led SPH Media to commission independent surveys on data on reach and readership.

On Jan 9, The Straits Times reported that the daily circulation numbers of SPH Media's titles were found to have been inflated by between 85,000 and 95,000, including instances where copies were printed, counted for circulation and then destroyed.

There was also "double-counting" of subscriptions in many instances, and a project account was "injected with additional funding over a period of time to purchase fictitious circulation".

Certain circulation numbers were also arbitrarily derived, it added.

A number of SPH Media's senior employees have left the organisation or been "taken to task" after an internal review found problems in the reporting of its circulation data, it said then.

In its statement on Friday, the company said that it has taken action against its staff members involved in the overstatement of circulation figures in end-December last year.

Since then, four have left the company and three were served warning letters.

The media organisation is the publisher of The Straits Times and The Business Times, as well as Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.