Why Razor TV?

So why did a traditional newspaper company expand into the web TV market? While SPH does have a number of online properties, they are essentially online extensions of current SPH newspapers like The Straits Times and Zaobao. Razor TV represents SPH’s first foray into the video-on-demand content.

A clue to this question can be found in the objectives of Razor TV. According to The Straits Times Razor TV Fact Sheet, their main objective is to attract viewers “between the ages of 18 and 40 and connect them to the print edition of The Straits Times” (SPH, 2008a). According to recent statistics from the Singapore government, there was a slight drop in newspaper circulation for English newspapers, from 904,518 in 2006 to 877,472 in 2007 (Statistics Singapore, 2009) while there was an overall 24.5% drop in circulation of English newspapers from 2002 to 2007 (Tan, 2008).

This situation is not just restricted to Singapore as newspapers around the world are also suffering from a drop in circulation. For example, major newspapers across the United States like the Boston Globe and The New York Times all experienced a drop in circulation. This has resulted in a “structural shift to online” for publishers of broadsheet newspapers (Crets, 2007). According to Tan (2008), one of the main reasons for the drop in newspaper circulation is the speed at which content is published online, where news websites are able to “publish stories even before the newspaper has gone to print”. Tan calls the internet a “newspaper killer of the first order”.


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