Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)

[CityFarmer]

I have been reading this book called "Googled" which documents the rise of Google and how the print media + publisher + broadcaster + network have been affected and how they have responded. It is a wonderful book where you can understand more about the biz model and other stories of Google.

Basically, revenue will drop significantly even if all print reader switched to online reader. The reason is very simple. In traditional media, they don't seek to quantify the ROI of advertising as much as in online like pay-per-click. What's more with all sort of website, targeted advertising can be done cheaper and more efficiently. Another very important reason is that space in online world is not scarce unlike in the newspaper where you can only have limited number of ads per newspaper. Scarcity creates a higher price and forum + website + blog + many others are competing in the online ad together.

To quote from the book "The rule of thumb is that an online ad brings in at most about one-tenth the revenue as the same ads in the newspaper".

However, it can be beneficial to SPH since we are talking about nearly 0 variable cost for every additional online subscriber acquired. Globally, Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are the few that succeed by charging for online subscription. SPH is likely to succeed given its near monopoly status.

Thanks for highlighted the book. I will reserve my time to read it. I am sure it will be an interesting read.

In fact, i am more interested on the job search portal biz model vs the job advert on SPH now. Due to indicators i observe, companies may slowly shift their focus from paper advert to job agent (headhunter) and/or job portal during staff hunting.