BattleStar empire will strike back

BattleStar empire will strike back
Helen Ang
People's Parliament - March 20, 2008

How big and strong is The Star?

The answer: Very.

Just look at the 17-storey Menara Star, its main printing plant in Bukit Jelutong and other subsidiary plants, bureaus in the various states and its guanxi (business networking).

Money maketh the MSM.

Newspapers take up the biggest slice of the adspend pie at 56 percent, i.e. raking in about RM3.1 billion revenue, according to a Feb 13 report by Nielson Media Research. The cost of a full page colour ad in a Star main page ranges between RM36,000 and RM38,500 depending on the day of the week – you do the math on adex (advertising expenditure) filling the paper’s coffers.

In its corporate profile, Star claims a readership of 1,122,000. This figure is based on Nielson’s July 2006-June 2007 Index. It also claims an audited circulation of 309,181 copies on weekdays and 322,741 on Sundays for the same period. Multiply the numbers with its cover prices of RM1.20 and RM1.50, with total days in a year and you get readers forking over roughly RM115.4m + RM21mil = RM136.4 million per annum.

The reason why Star gets our goat is because of its smug spinning.

Reasons why it so sickeningly spins are because the paper is owned by MCA, linked to the government and has BN vested interests at heart. It figures that the paper’s top management, both editorial and corporate, is handpicked by the owners.

Can MCA reinvent itself to shed its communalism? Not unless it drops the ‘Chinese’ in its name, upon which the party will cease to have its raison d’etre.

Can a rebranded The Star likewise change its spots? I don’t think so, not unless the Augean stables of its highest echelons are cleaned out first. These men (and women) are dyed in wool pro-establishment, and dare we say, know which side their bread is buttered. Its reporters and middle-rankers are not necessarily likewise. But if you want to climb up the career ladder and fast, it naturally pays to play the politics.

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