Mediacorp is a media conglomerate that serves as Singapore’s national public broadcaster. The company’s history dates back to 1936, when the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation was established and granted a license by the British Crown to operate a radio network.
The company currently operates six television stations, 11 radio channels, and five news portals. In terms of assets, Mediacorp is the largest media company in Singapore.
Media assets
Television: Suria, Channel 5 , Channel U, Channel 8, Vasantham, CNA
Radio: Ria, Gold, Symphony, YES, CNA938, Warna, Class, Capital, Oli, Love, 987
News portals: 8Days, Today, 8World, Berita, Seithi
State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu)
Ownership and governance
Mediacorp is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, an investment company under the control of the Government of Singapore. Temasek has a diversified portfolio of investments across various industries, including DBS Bank, Singapore Airlines, engineering firms, and numerous investment vehicles.
As the sole proprietor of Mediacorp, Temasek Holdings appoints the nine members of the Board of Directors, which oversees the management of Mediacorp. The current members of the board hold positions in other state-run companies (e.g., the Maritime and Port Authority) or in the state administration.
Source of funding and budget
Mediacorp is funded through a combination of state funding and advertising revenue. State funding comes from grants from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), a statutory body of the Singapore government subordinated to the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), as well as subsidies from other ministries and state agencies. Mediacorp has not published detailed financial reports for several years.
Local analysts in Singapore, interviewed for this report in March 2023 and May 2024, have indicated that Mediacorp’s revenues from commercials accounted for approximately 40% of the company’s total income in 2019. From 2015 to 2020, the government provided Mediacorp with an annual grant of S$ 310m (US$ 228m) to fund the production of public service programming.
However, in recent years, the company has increased the proportion of commercial sales in its overall income, due to a reduction in government subsidies.
In 2021, Mediacorp launched Mediacorp AdDirect, a self-service advertising platform designed to provide businesses of all sizes with the opportunity to reach their target audience. This initiative was undertaken with the objective of boosting Mediacorp’s advertising revenues. The platform allows advertisers to create their own campaigns and monitor their performance on various Mediacorp-owned platforms.
The government allocation for the production of public service broadcasting programs decreased to S$ 170m (US$ 119m) in 2022, according to data from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the country’s media regulator.
Editorial independence
Despite claims by Mediacorp’s management that its outlets have editorial independence, local experts and journalists interviewed for this report in March 2023 and May 2024 indicated that the company has a highly restrictive editorial policy that all journalists in the company must adhere to. According to journalists with inside sources at Mediacorp, reports are frequently censored by a team of individuals whose sole responsibility is to perform this task. These claims were corroborated by former employees.
The most recent research conducted for this report has not identified any domestic statutes that establish the independence of the media outlets run by Mediacorp.
September 2024