SPH Media stands out for its dynamic adaptation and relentless pursuit of innovation. With a storied history spanning 178 years, this venerable institution has navigated through the tides of change by continuously evolving its approach to meet the shifting demands of its audience. From pioneering online editions to embracing AI and immersive media, SPH Media’s journey is a testament to its commitment to excellence and relevance in the digital age.

The transformation of SPH Media is not just about adopting new technologies but also about understanding and anticipating the needs of its audience. Through strategic integration of data analytics and multimedia storytelling, the company has enhanced the depth and engagement of its news stories, offering personalized and interactive content experiences. As we delve into the insights shared by Kaythaya Maw, Chief Technology Officer, SPH Media, we uncover the pillars of their innovative approach, the impact of technology on content delivery, and the vision that drives their future initiatives.

Can you share the genesis of SPH Media’s innovative approach and how it has evolved over the years?

SPH Media and our publications have a long standing history of innovation which has evolved significantly over the years to adapt to the changing media landscape.  

We started as a print media company which has been contributing to Singapore’s media landscape over the last 178 years, with 40 media brands reaching diverse demographics across Asia. By the early 2000s, we foresaw the need to diversify beyond just print media as digital media gained traction. We launched online editions, websites and diversified into radio, magazines, outdoor advertising and events. The Business Times (BT) was the first English newspaper in Asia to go online (Business Times Online) in January 1994, followed by The Straits Times (ST). Soon after, Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) became the first Chinese newspaper in the world to go online in August 1995.

Our digital transformation started in the 2010s when we accelerated our digital media offerings with interactive websites, news apps, video content, and social media. We invested in data analytics capabilities to better understand audience preferences, and adopted a “Digital First” approach, where content was produced for digital edition before print.

Since 2022, SPH Media has been doubling down on an integrated multimedia approach – strengthening our print, digital, radio, and outdoor advertising verticals. We adopted emerging technologies like AI, immersive media, leveraging data and analytics for more personalised content, and focused on building deep multimedia capabilities to engage audiences across multiple platforms.

Throughout this transformation, we have continually invested in innovation – new content formats, delivery channels, technology adoption and data capabilities – to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving media landscape.   

How does SPH Media utilize data analytics to uncover trends and deliver insights that enhance the depth of news stories?

Our technology team has been integrating the different sets of data across the company. We have built a data lake that gives us a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of our audiences’ behaviour and preferences, and we can use these insights to create better products and experiences for our customers. 

We identified limitations in many common analytics products in the market, hence implemented our own analytics platform called Neuron. Neuron allows us to collect, ingest, and analyse real-time audience behavioural data from every customer touchpoint across SPH Media. This audience behavioural data enables us to develop a deeper understanding of how our users interact with our digital products and what their reading preferences are. This in turn allows us to deliver a more personalised reading experience, better content recommendations, and more relevant and engaging stories. 

Could you provide examples of how AI integration has improved the quality of content delivery and enhanced the user experience on SPH Media platforms?

AI acts as a force multiplier across our platforms. By integrating AI across our content lifecycle – from creation to enhancement to personalised delivery, we have been able to increase operational efficiencies, provide richer multimedia experiences tailored to users’ preferences, ultimately improving content discovery and engagement. 

We have adopted AI to streamline our work processes and enable our journalists to focus more time on higher value work, such as interviewing and reporting of news. Generative AI tools have significantly reduced the time spent on routine journalistic activities, such as basic translation, transcription and summarisation of articles for publication on different digital platforms.

In what ways does SPH Media incorporate multimedia elements and interactive storytelling techniques to engage readers more dynamically?

SPH Media is constantly working to deliver more dynamic and engaging content experiences tailored to current digital audience preferences. We have been blending multimedia formats like videos, immersive experiences, data visualisations and interactive elements into our storytelling. Some examples include:

• Multimedia Long-form and Interactive Articles: Our newsrooms’ Interactive Graphics team produces visual-heavy long-form articles that weave text, videos, graphics, animated visualisations and interactive elements together. 
• 360° Videos/Photos and Immersive Storytelling: Our teams experimented with 360° videos and photos to provide immersive perspectives, such as ST’s Through the Lens exhibition. This allows readers to navigate and explore exhibits in a virtual environment from various angles for a more engaging experience.
• Data Visualisations and Interactive Charts: Our data journalism pieces utilise interactive charts, maps and visualisations to let readers explore data dynamically, such as our interactive feature on Budget 2024 with data charts and expenditure breakdowns.
• Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences: We leverage AR capabilities to overlay digital information on real-world scenes through their mobile apps. For example, the goal of the day at World Cup 2022 was an interactive AR game depicting the top five most iconic goals in FIFA World Cup history. 
• Podcasts and Audio Stories: In addition to text/visual stories, SPH Media produces podcasts across genres like news analysis, lifestyle, Chinese opera etc., such as the video podcast on Taylor Swift produced by ST. This allows audiences to consume stories through audio when desired.

What future initiatives is SPH Media planning to solidify its approach to audience engagement, particularly with the younger audience, amidst ongoing industry changes?

Engaging the young audience is a key priority for SPH Media. We have various initiatives to solidify engagement with the younger generation of readers amidst industry changes. All our news titles have introduced new youth-focused offerings to nurture news consumption habits, successfully doubling the following among young audiences recently.

Key objectives of these initiatives include growing the youth community, developing their news habits, and delivering innovative video content. An ecosystem of differentiated youth products like Thrive, HeyKaki, Orang Muda Gitew and Tamil Murasu (TM) app are being expanded. These leverage formats preferred by youths, such as short videos, podcasts, social media, and lifestyle content.

The strategy involves a multi-pronged approach involving social media, influencers, innovative formats, data-driven insights and direct youth inputs, which aims to solidify connections with younger audiences. Specifically, we are solidifying youth engagement amidst industry shifts through:

• Social media presence with snackable, interactive content; understanding audience interests
• Collaborating with popular youth influencers on content and events
• Investing in audio/video formats like news shows, podcasts and YouTube
• Revamping digital products with interactive, multimedia and personalised youth-friendly features
• Leveraging data analytics to study youth segments and customise content
• Youth advisory panels guiding content strategies aligned with their interests

How does SPH Media balance the use of technological advancements with maintaining journalistic integrity and credibility?

We take a balanced approach by adhering to strict editorial standards and transparency when leveraging technologies like AI for content assistance. We invest in training journalists on ethics, value human expertise alongside technology, maintain strong data governance, and have external accountability mechanisms – to uphold journalistic integrity and credibility while harnessing technological advancements.

Can you elaborate on the challenges faced by SPH Media in staying ahead of the curve in such a rapidly evolving media landscape?

The pace of change in today’s ever evolving media landscape requires constant innovation across multiple fronts. The breakneck speed of technological change, from AI and immersive media to newer content distribution platforms as well as the prevalence  of fake news requires striking the right balance between adopting emerging technologies and safeguarding journalistic integrity. 

Consumer habits, especially among younger audiences, are shifting rapidly with short attention spans and preferences for snackable, multimedia content over traditional formats like print. Catering to these evolving habits while retaining SPH Media’s brand identity as the trusted source of news on Singapore and Asia is one of our top priorities.  

How does SPH Media ensure inclusivity and accessibility in its content delivery methods, considering diverse audience preferences and technological access?

We take a number of approaches to ensure our news content is both inclusive and accessible across our diverse reader demographics. We have an expansive portfolio of news delivery platforms – print, digital, radio, and outdoor to cater to audiences with different media consumption habits. This allows us to reach audiences whether they prefer physical newspapers, websites, apps, or audio formats like radio and podcasts.  

Our vernacular papers such as LHZB, Berita Harian and TM allow us to overcome linguistic barriers, while nurturing and preserving language and culture. We also actively engage the community, our readers, our partners, grassroots and dialect groups to understand audience needs and preferences, and tailor content topics and delivery modes for better inclusivity based on feedback.

To ensure that our content is accessible, our digital platforms incorporate accessibility features like text resizing, high-contrast modes, audio, and text-to-speech functions.  This enables easier access for audiences with disabilities or limitations. For example, the visually impaired can access audio versions, while mobile-first audiences prefer snackable videos. We also support senior readers in their transition from print to digital, by offering tablet devices which allow readers to view content in digital e-Paper format.

Could you share insights into the collaborative efforts within SPH Media’s teams to foster innovation and drive forward-thinking initiatives?

At the organisational level, we have cross-functional teams that bring together talent from diverse backgrounds like journalism, technology, product, design and marketing. These multidisciplinary teams ideate, experiment and rapidly prototype new products, content formats and solutions through design thinking methodologies. This cross-pollination of ideas sparks novel innovations.

Within the Technology Division, we have established a Strategic Futures and Innovation capability tasked with enhancing our readiness to address future opportunities and challenges. We recognise that innovation cannot be incubated within a lab, but needs to be part of our entire company culture. Hence, we seed and nurture company-wide awareness of emerging trends and technologies, construct a ‘topographic map of the future’ to aid in making strategic investments, and experiment, prototype and prove novel business models and products. This is an approach that has been adopted across SPH Media. 

Lastly, how do you envision the future of media consumption and the role SPH Media will play in shaping it?

The future of media consumption is poised to be highly personalised, immersive, and platform-agnostic. As audiences become more fragmented and their content preferences diversify, SPH Media will continue evolving to shape this landscape. Amidst this transformation, SPH Media’s role will remain consistent in fulfilling our mission of being the trusted source of news on Singapore and Asia, to represent the communities that make up Singapore and to connect them to the world. Our methods will need to radically evolve, including developments such as:

• Leveraging AI, big data, and analytics. SPH Media will curate hyper-personalised content journeys tailored to individual interests, consumption patterns, and contexts. Content recommendations, formats, and delivery channels will be adapted in real-time based on user signals.
• With audiences fluidly moving across devices and platforms, SPH Media will be designing seamless, omnichannel experiences. Stories will dynamically adapt and sync across mobile, desktop, social, and even emerging platforms like AI chat prompts and metaverse experiences.
• With the recent launch of Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 2, we can expect to gradually employ immersive formats like virtual reality (VR), AR, and mixed reality (MR) to transport audiences into rich, multi-sensory narrative experiences. Journalism will transcend traditional mediums for higher engagement.
• We might also expect to shift from being just a content producer to an orchestrator of open content ecosystems. There may be potential for user-generated content, creator collaborations, and knowledge-sharing communities to coexist with professional journalism, as long as we can maintain the integrity of delivering trusted and reliable content.

By being nimble, audience-centric, embracing emerging technologies, and fostering open innovation ecosystems, SPH Media can shape a future where credible content remains indispensable in a hyper-personalised media universe.