SPH publishes The Straits Times, Business Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu. (Facebook pic)
PETALING JAYA: An internal review at newspaper publisher Singapore Press Holdings found that the group had inflated daily average circulation figures by 85,000 and 95,000 or about 10% to 12%, The Straits Times (ST) reported today.
The internal review in March 2022 found that newspapers were printed, counted for publication and then destroyed. Lapsed contracts also continued to be counted into circulation data, the report said.
“A project account was injected with additional funding over a period of time to purchase fictitious circulation,” a SPH spokesperson told the ST. “Certain circulation numbers were arbitrarily derived.”
SPH publishes The Straits Times, Business Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.
Singapore’s ministry of communications and information had asked the company to share its full findings and recently received an internal report on the matter.
In a reply to Channel News Asia regarding the findings of the review, SPH said “the staff involved had been taken to task, or had left the organisation”.
SPH did not say how long the practice had been going on, nor did it name the staff who were involved.
It also did not clarify how long the circulation data was being inflated, whether a police report had been made, and how it plans to compensate companies that bought advertising space at rates based on the false data.
