Singapore Press : SPH bags 3 awards at INMA Global Media Awards

The competition is produced by the International News Media Association (INMA), the premier organisation dedicated to surfacing the best ideas in media.

The INMA Global Media Awards competition received 699 entries from 264 news brands in 40 countries and was judged by an international panel of 41 executives from 19 countries representing stakeholders in the media industry.

The Straits Times Innovation Lab won first place for Best New Concept to Incubate Products or Ideas. It is a dedicated and focused initiative set up in 2015 to ensure that The Straits Times (ST) keeps abreast of technological innovation and digital trends. It hosted Google News Lab in December last year for an inspiring introduction to media innovation and new technologies such as the 360-degree video. In January this year, it hosted the Front End TL;DR meetup - a gathering for the active community of front-end developers in Singapore. The informal event drew developers, designers and project managers from across various industries, and it provided ample learning and networking opportunities for both external participants and the ST team. The Straits Times Innovation Lab will continue to reach out to both internal staff across all fields and departments, and to the Singapore media, technology and design community at large.

ST also won first place for Best Execution of Print Advertisingfor 'The Interactive Newspapers'. Leveraging on technology, an exact digital replica of the newspaper was developed to add interactivity and animation to the advertisements so as to engage readers. These innovations seek to enable the newspapers in print format to maintain its print revenue model, increase its readership online, gain additional revenues from the added digital features, and extend the reach of the advertisements to wider audience beyond the newspaper online physical copy circulations. The interactive features allow readers to contact advertisers via one-touch call, messaging, email, or go direct to the advertisers' website.

AsiaOne, Asia's leading news and information website, won third place for Best Use of Mobile for its mobile apps for iOS and Android. With the concept of helping readers save time, and to make it more appealing to new groups of users, in particular younger readers in the 20-25 age group, the new mobile apps were designed and developed. New features include more varied content from a much wider range of content partners, like BBC, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and Vulcan Post. The app was also refreshed with an improved design that is sleek, clean and modern to give readers a better user-experience.

Mr Alan Chan, Chief Executive Officer of SPH, said: 'These awards demonstrate our desire and ability to constantly innovate and engage all our stakeholders in the face of challenges in today's media industry. As Asia's leading media organisation, we will continue to strive and excel in all our businesses by enhancing our media offerings and staying ahead of the competition.'

Mr Warren Fernandez, Editor of ST, said: 'The Straits Times has been on a journey to transform itself into a fully multimedia newsroom these past years. This has meant constantly trying new ideas and testing out new concepts for our products to meet our readers' information needs. The Innovation Lab was conceived in that spirit, and we are glad that it has been recognised with this award.'
Mr Eugene Leow, Digital Editor of ST, said: 'The Straits Times is a multiplatform product, available in print and digital. Winning a prestigious international award that recognises our effort to be innovative and creative is testament to our journalists who are constantly thinking about new forms of story telling.'

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About Singapore Press Holdings Ltd

Incorporated in 1984, main board-listed Singapore Press Holdings Ltd (SPH) is Asia's leading media organisation, engaging minds and enriching lives across multiple languages and platforms.

Media The English/Malay/Tamil Media group comprises the print and digital operations of The Straits Times, The Business Times, The New Paper, Berita Harian, My Paper (English section) and two student publications IN and Little Red Dot. It also consists of Tamil Murasu Ltd, which publishes Tamil Murasu and tabla!; book publishing arm Straits Times Press; SPH Data Services, which licenses the use of the Straits Times Index, in partnership with the Singapore Exchange and FTSE Ltd; financial data company ShareInvestor; and the two English stations of SPH Radio - Kiss92 and ONE FM 91.3.

The Chinese Media group publishes three Chinese newspapers - Lianhe Zaobao, Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News; the digital editions of Lianhe Zaobao and Lianhe Wanbao, four student weeklies - zbCOMMA, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Up Junior and Thumbs Up Little Junior, ZBBZ Newsgazine and My Paper (Chinese section). It also operates SPH Radio's Chinese radio station, UFM100.3, and Focus Publishing, which produces a range of books and magazines including U-Weekly.

SPH's other new media initiatives include AsiaOne, Stomp, zaobao.sg, omy.sgand SPH Razor.
On an average day, 2.8 million* individuals or 68 per cent of people above 15 years old, read one of SPH's news publications in print copies or one of our digital platforms. (* Nielsen Media Index 2015, Monday-Sunday, read any SPH newspapers in print or digital format)

SPH Magazines, SPH's wholly-owned subsidiary, publishes and produces more than 100 magazine titles and has various online sites, like hardwarezone.com, herworldplus.comand luxuryinsider.comin Singapore and the region, covering a broad range of interests from lifestyle to information technology. It has also invested in digital newsstand Magzter.

SPH also provides out-of-home (OOH) advertising options where it manages large format screens and static billboards at key locations in the Central Business District, Orchard Road, City Fringe as well as major heartland hubs.

SPH Buzz is a modern retail convenience chain with a network of stores around the island.

SPH has a 20 per cent stake in MediaCorp TV Holdings Pte Ltd, which operates free-to-air channels 5, 8 and U, and a 40 per cent stake in MediaCorp Press Limited, which publishes the free newspaper, Today.

PropertiesSPH REIT is a Singapore-based REIT established to invest in a portfolio of income-producing real estate primarily for retail purposes. SPH REIT comprises Paragon, a premier upscale retail mall and medical suite/office property in Orchard Road and The Clementi Mall, a mid-market suburban mall in the centre of Clementi town.

The Seletar Mall, located in Sengkang, is SPH's latest retail development. This property is a potential asset to be injected into SPH REIT. SPH's wholly-owned subsidiary, Times Development Pte Ltd, also developed a 43-storey upmarket residential condominium, Sky@eleven, at Thomson Road.

Other Businesses

Online Classified
SPH's online classifieds include the leading online marketplace for jobs (STJobs, FastJobs), property (STProperty), cars (STCars) and general classifieds (STClassifieds,Trezo), sgCarMart and StreetSine.
SPH's regional joint venture online classified business has a number of leading online classified sites in the region.

Events and ExhibitionsSphere Exhibits, Sphere Conferences, Exhibits Inc and Bizlink Exhibition Services organise innovative consumer and trade events and exhibitions as well as large scale conferences in Singapore and the region.

EducationSPH has a 22 per cent stake in preschool and enrichment provider MindChamps.

For more information, please visit www.sph.com.sg.