SPH Media Trust (SMT)

SPH Media Trust is the company limited by guarantee that owns Singapore’s national newspaper titles, including The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu. Incorporated on 19 July 2021 and operating from 1 December 2021, it holds the media business formerly run by the listed Singapore Press Holdings. It is not state-owned. It is nonetheless governed through a statutory management-share regime requiring ministerial approval at the newspaper-company level, and it now receives substantial direct government funding, which since 2024 has led ministers to describe it in Parliament as a public service media entity alongside Mediacorp.

Media assets

Newspapers: The Straits Times, The Business Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, tabla!

Digital: Stomp, incorporating The New Paper, and Tech in Asia

Radio: MONEY FM 89.3, ONE FM 91.3, Kiss92, 96.3 Hao FM, UFM100.3, and the Awedio streaming service

Other: Straits Times Press, an out-of-home advertising business, and lifestyle and specialist brands including Her World, Home & Decor, The Peak and HardwareZone

The portfolio has contracted through successive consolidation. Lianhe Wanbao ceased publication on 24 December 2021, merged into Shin Min Daily News. The New Paper has passed through two stages: print publication ended on 11 December 2021, and the title merged into Stomp on 30 October 2025, its standalone website closing on 1 December 2025 with the archive retained as a TNP section of the Stomp platform. Tech in Asia, acquired under an agreement reached in late 2023, is now part of the portfolio. AsiaOne is not an SPH Media title: following a private buyout in December 2022, SPH Media retained only a minority shareholding.

SPH Media reported in February 2026 that its titles reach 86 per cent of Singaporeans aged 15 and above each week. It employs roughly 2,500 staff, including about 1,000 journalists.

Ownership and governance

SPH Media Trust is a distinct legal entity rather than a renamed Singapore Press Holdings, incorporated as a company limited by guarantee to receive SPH’s media business. The listed parent retained the investment-property and aged-care businesses, was taken private, and was renamed Cuscaden Peak Investments in May 2022. SMT did not inherit that investment-property portfolio. It has no share capital and no shareholders, cannot distribute profits, and its members are guarantors rather than owners.

Those members are the first governance fact of note. SPH Media’s published list of institutional members comprises sixteen bodies: DBS, UOB, OCBC, Great Eastern, Income Insurance, NTUC Enterprise, Singtel, CapitaLand Investment, Changi Airport Group, PSA International, Mapletree Investments, Fullerton, and the four autonomous universities, NUS, NTU, SMU and SUTD. SPH Media describes them as providing stewardship and voting on key corporate governance matters. They are not a government body and do not direct editorial decisions. The membership is nonetheless drawn predominantly from state-linked corporations and public institutions rather than from the reading public or from independent trusts.

The second and more consequential fact is statutory. Singapore’s Newspaper and Printing Presses Act 1974 requires newspaper companies to issue management shares alongside ordinary shares. All issues and transfers of management shares require ministerial approval, and on any resolution concerning the appointment or dismissal of a director or member of staff, one management share carries the weight of two hundred ordinary shares. The regime applies to the newspaper operating company beneath SPH Media Trust rather than to the Trust itself, which has no shares; the government stated at the time of the restructuring that corresponding safeguards would be written into the Trust’s constitution, and confirmed to Parliament that the Act would continue to apply to the media business under the new structure. The legal architecture therefore changed while the government’s statutory role in the management-share framework, and the objectives that framework exists to serve, were deliberately preserved.

Leadership reflects the same pattern. Khaw Boon Wan, a former Cabinet minister who held the health, national development and transport portfolios and chaired the governing People’s Action Party from 2011 to 2018, came out of retirement to chair SMT at its formation and continues in the role. Chan Yeng Kit became Chief Executive Officer on 15 July 2024, moving directly from the civil service, where he had been Permanent Secretary for Health. He had previously served as Permanent Secretary at the former Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts and as founding chairman of the media regulator, IMDA, a post he left in March 2024 shortly before joining the SPH Media Holdings board. He succeeded Teo Lay Lim, who came from the private sector. Wong Wei Kong is editor-in-chief of the English, Malay and Tamil Media Group; Jaime Ho edits The Straits Times.

The responsible ministry is the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, renamed from the Ministry of Communications and Information with effect from 8 July 2024.

Source of funding and budget

On 16 February 2022 the government committed up to S$900 million over five years, framed as support for digital transformation rather than as an operating subsidy. Roughly 40 per cent was designated for technology and digital talent, the remainder for newsroom capability. The first tranche was disbursed in March 2023.

Some S$320 million was paid across the first two financial years. For FY2024 the ministry provided S$260.6 million, with a further S$28.9 million budgeted as a Performance Linked Incentive conditional on key performance indicators. That allocation was substantially above the annual level announced when the five-year package was unveiled in 2022, and the ministry described it as in line with the funding agreement. Cumulative disbursement across the first three financial years is in the region of S$580 million against a five-year commitment of S$900 million that expires in 2027.

The accountability architecture is real but narrow. Funding is governed by a time-limited agreement with performance indicators covering digital reach, engagement, youth readership and vernacular audiences. Performance and financial statements must be externally audited before submission, the government holds audit rights, half-yearly progress updates are required, and support may be terminated for serious wrongdoing or mismanagement. The ministry states that it does not set editorial policy and that funding is tied to reach and engagement rather than to editorial decisions. What does not exist is an arm’s-length funding institution: the quantum and the continuation of public support are determined by the executive. SPH Media did not meet the indicators for 2024, and the financial consequence fell on the incentive payment rather than on the base grant. Asked about this in Parliament, the minister said the indicators were important but not the only measure of a public service media entity’s performance.

The commercial side of the ledger cannot be established from freely available sources. SMT does not publish a current consolidated revenue breakdown, and MDDI has told Parliament that information on the company’s finances can be obtained from ACRA, adding that SMT may raise funding independently from other sources. The last full-year benchmark predates the Trust: SPH’s media business recorded external revenue of S$404.7 million in the financial year to August 2021, down by S$85.8 million or 17.5 per cent year on year, with an operating loss of S$38.7 million before restructuring costs. That figure belongs to a different corporate entity and cannot establish SMT’s present commercial income. State Media Monitor makes no estimate of the current ratio between public and commercial revenue.

Cost reduction has continued alongside the grant. In November 2024 SPH Media cut 34 roles, about 10 per cent of its technology division. Commercial development has focused on distribution and audience partnerships: a memorandum with SMRT’s Stellar Lifestyle signed on 28 January 2026 will carry news and audio bulletins across the public transport network from the second half of 2026, and an exclusive partnership with Taboola announced in February 2026 deploys AI-driven content recommendation across the digital portfolio.

The circulation misstatement that shadowed the early funding years has closed. An internal audit and risk committee report dated 16 June 2023 found that daily circulation had been overstated by 82,600 copies on August 2021 data, roughly 10 per cent of the reported daily average, with bulk copies counted although returned, unsold or undelivered. Several staff were disciplined or left. On 29 April 2026 the police announced that the investigation into current and former employees and directors, for offences including falsification of accounts and cheating, had concluded with no basis for criminal charges and no further action, in consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers. A revised circulation methodology, endorsed by a WAN-IFRA expert panel, has been in use since November 2023. The conduct predated the public funding relationship and did not implicate the editorial departments.

Editorial independence

No Singapore statute guarantees the editorial independence of SPH Media’s newsrooms, and the CLG structure supplies no substitute. There is no charter, no arm’s-length funding mechanism, and no independent oversight body with authority over editorial matters. Funding is disbursed against a time-limited agreement that expires in 2027 with no publicly defined benchmark for renewal, and the executive branch that determines whether support continues is the branch the newsrooms are expected to scrutinise. Undertakings given at the entity’s formation to protect editorial independence rest on assurance rather than on structure.

The government’s own characterisation has shifted in a way that sharpens the question. In March 2024 the minister described SPH Media to Parliament as a public service media entity with a role in informing Singaporeans and projecting Singapore’s perspectives abroad. By February 2026 she was naming both Mediacorp and SPH Media as the country’s public service media entities. When the funding was first justified in 2022, the ministry had distinguished SPH Media from Mediacorp precisely on the ground that it was not government-owned. The institutional category has converged while the governance framework has not.

Coverage of opposition politics drew criticism during the review period. On 25 June 2026, three days before a Workers’ Party cadre conference, The Straits Times reported that disgruntled cadres aimed to unseat party leader Pritam Singh and that former party chief Low Thia Khiang might back a rival, naming four sitting members as possible challengers. At the conference on 28 June, Low confirmed his support for Singh, no challenger stood, Singh was returned unopposed, and all four named individuals were elected to the party’s executive committee. Commentators criticised the pre-conference reporting as disproportionate to the outcome, noting that other mainstream outlets covering the same event did not carry the rumours.

Senior SPH Media executives made a four-day visit to Beijing in July 2025, meeting China Media Group, People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency, and visiting Tsinghua University’s journalism school. Xinhua reported an agreement framed in the language of telling the two countries’ story well. Singapore outlets did not report a concluded agreement in those terms. Asked in Parliament on 24 September 2025 whether the ministry knew the details of a proposed collaboration with Chinese state-owned news organisations and had assessed the risk of foreign interference, the minister replied in writing that it was not clear which collaboration was being referred to, and that safeguards against foreign editorial interference apply whether or not a newspaper receives government funding.

AI and digital policy

SPH Media’s digital strategy is built around subscription conversion, distribution partnerships and audience recovery. The Straits Times website and app were relaunched in early 2025, and the title marked its 180th year in July 2025.

Artificial intelligence entered the newsrooms through partnership rather than through published rules. In February 2026 the group signed an exclusive partnership with Taboola deploying AI-driven content discovery across The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu and Stomp. On 17 April 2026 SPH Media and Google announced a four-part partnership covering content and distribution, AI capability building, talent development and audience engagement, including training in generative AI verification for investigative research, the introduction of AI-enabled newsroom workflows, and a stated commitment to responsible AI use. The refreshed Stomp platform launched in October 2025 with an AI summariser among its features.

SPH Media has therefore committed publicly to responsible AI use and is introducing generative AI verification training and AI-enabled workflows. State Media Monitor identified no publicly accessible group-wide editorial AI policy setting standards for generative content, synthetic media, human review, or disclosure of AI-assisted material to audiences.

Singapore imposes no binding national code establishing AI-specific editorial standards for news publishers. The Model AI Governance Frameworks and the AI Verify toolkit operate as voluntary guidance and testing mechanisms. On 20 July 2026 the Personal Data Protection Commission issued advisory guidelines clarifying how existing obligations under the Personal Data Protection Act apply to generative AI, including AI-specific notification where organisations rely on consent for model training or fine-tuning, subject to deemed-consent and statutory exceptions. This is data-protection guidance rather than an editorial AI code.

Classification rationale

SPH Media Trust remains classified Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu).

It is not state-owned, but it is state-managed in the specific sense the category describes. The Newspaper and Printing Presses Act requires management shares whose transfer needs ministerial approval and which carry two hundred times the ordinary voting weight on the appointment and dismissal of directors and staff. That regime applies to the newspaper company beneath the Trust, with corresponding safeguards written into the Trust’s constitution at the government’s direction, and it is the clearest single basis for the classification. It is reinforced by a chairmanship held by a former Cabinet minister and party chairman, a chief executive who moved directly from a Permanent Secretary post after chairing the media regulator, and a guarantor membership drawn predominantly from state-linked companies and public institutions.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state influence. No statute or charter protects the newsrooms, no arm’s-length institution governs the funding, and the quantum and continuation of public support are determined by the executive on terms not publicly defined beyond 2027. The company’s undertakings on independence are assurances without enforcement mechanisms. The ministry’s position that it does not set editorial policy is recorded, and State Media Monitor identifies no evidence of direction of editorial content; the finding rests on structure rather than on instruction.

The funding condition is unresolved rather than contrary. Government support is exceptionally large by any measure, reaching S$260.6 million in FY2024 with up to S$28.9 million more available. But SMT does not publish a current consolidated revenue breakdown, and the last full-year benchmark, S$404.7 million in external media revenue in FY2021, belongs to the predecessor entity and sits well above the FY2024 grant. There is no basis on the public record for concluding that public money constitutes the predominant share of income, and the restructuring model expressly envisaged a revenue-seeking business in which advertising, subscription and other income would be complemented by government funding. CaPu is therefore the correct classification: state management is clearly established, while the funding condition required for State-Controlled is not.

The expiry and renewal of the funding arrangement in 2027 will be a major classification review point. State-Controlled would become the better fit if renewed arrangements, ACRA filings, or other authoritative disclosure establish that public funding constitutes the predominant share of SMT’s income.

August 2026