Channel NewsAsia (abbreviated CNA) is a 24-hour television news channel and news agency based in Singapore, broadcasting free-to-air domestically and by cable television and satellite television to 28 territories in Asia, the Middle East and Australia.
Launched in 1999, Channel NewsAsia has the widest reach in the Asia-Pacific of television news channels indigenous to Asia, according to the most recent Ipsos Affluent Survey Asia Pacific (October 2017) of high-net-worth-individuals. Among international news channels, Channel NewsAsia was ranked fifth (with CNN and BBC World News first and second, respectively).
The English language network has been positioned since its launch as an alternative to Western-based international media in its presentation of news from "an Asian perspective". It is run by Mediacorp News Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of the Singapore media conglomerate Mediacorp Pte Ltd.
CNA's other key business is the production of news and current affairs content in four languages, English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil. This content is produced for Mediacorp's television and online platforms, such as mass entertainment Channels 5, 8, U, Suria and Vasantham.
Video Channel NewsAsia
History
Early years
Channel NewsAsia began broadcasting on March 1, 1999, under the Television Corporation of Singapore (renamed MediaCorp TV the following year). The network aired only domestically at the beginning, as Singapore's first dedicated news and current affairs television channel, although its international ambitions were signalled clearly from day one.
In his speech at the CNA launch event, Singapore's then Minister for Information & the Arts, BG (NS) George Yeo, said that the network "would hopefully help (the Television Corporation of Singapore) become a significant player in the regional broadcasting industry".
The network began broadcasting regionally 18 months later with the launch of its international broadcasting arm, Channel NewsAsia (International), on September 28, 2000.
In 2002, Channel NewsAsia signed a news content-exchange deal with Metro TV, making its news footage and programmes available to the Indonesia network which broadcast to 30 cities in the country, including Jakarta.
Initial expansion
As Channel NewsAsia turned five, Mediacorp reported that CNA was the most watched television news network in Singapore, ahead of BBC and CNN. The March 5, 2004 newspaper report marking CNA's fifth anniversary also put CNA's international reach at "more than 16 million homes and hotel rooms in 18 territories, from the Middle East to South Asia, South-east Asia, North-east Asia and Australia".
Several carriage deals with were struck in 2004, including an arrangement between Mediacorp and China International TV Corporation (CITV) for CNA to be made available in hotels and foreign residences in China from 2005. The deal was signed in May and announced in November.
In July, a deal was struck between Mediacorp and the Thailand Cable TV Association for CNA's carriage in the country. A similar arrangement with Malaysian pay TV operator MiTV was reported the following month.
Entering Myanmar, India
In August 2012, Channel NewsAsia reached an agreement to broadcast in Myanmar through direct-to-home (DTH) pay TV operator Sky Net. CNA opened its Myanmar news bureau in the capital Yangon in October 2013 - the bureau officially opened in January 2014 - as only one of four foreign news organisations licensed to operate in the country at the time.
In mid-2015, Channel NewsAsia's reach was placed at 58 million households in 26 countries and territories, according to CNA Managing Director Debra Soon in a July 6, 2015, interview with Thai newspaper The Nation.
CNA began broadcasting in India on November 19, 2015, through DTH operator Tata Sky. The move extended the network's reach to 14 million households in India, Mediacorp and Tata Sky said in a joint press statement.
Channel NewsAsia currently broadcasts to 28 territories in Asia and the Middle East, across 11 time zones.
Further developments
Channel NewsAsia relaunched on January 21, 2013, and began broadcasting 24 hours a day, up from 20 hours daily (6am to 2am, Singapore time). The network also announced at its relaunch that it would be expanding its programming and coverage, while the network's new city studio in the Marina Bay Financial District was unveiled.
In July 2014, CNA opened its Vietnam bureau, bringing the number of official news bureaus in South-east Asia and East Asia to 14. CNA's other bureaus include Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo; unofficial bureaus are also maintained in cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi and Washington DC.
In September 2014, the channel announced plans to expand its studio in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, into a fully functional high definition (HD) satellite studio.
In 2016, Channel NewsAsia's editorial team was merged with their counterparts from Mediacorp's newspaper TODAY and Mediacorp Radio; the estimated staff of 700 journalists now occupy a "digital-first integrated newsroom" within the new purpose-built Mediacorp Campus facility in the one-north area.
Maps Channel NewsAsia
Identity
Channel NewsAsia is positioned as an alternative to Western-based media since its launch, emphasising its reporting on "global developments with Asian perspectives" and its ability to "understand Asia", offering deeper insight into Asia as a network indigenous to the continent.
Programming
Channel NewsAsia's weekly schedule is primarily rolling news programming from 2am to 6pm (Singapore time), with more current affairs, lifestyle magazine and in-depth analysis programmes airing in the evening and on weekends.
Current affairs, analysis and lifestyle shows run throughout the day.
On-air staff
Presenters
Channel NewsAsia's roster of on-air presenters currently stands at 25 as of March 21, 2018, according to the network's website. All presenters are either of Asian ethnicity or have mixed ancestry - Adam Bakhtiar and Cheryl Fox, for example.
The majority are Singaporean while seven presenters are originally from Brunei (Steve Lai), Canada (Teresa Tang), China (Henry Yin), Malaysia (Bakhtiar, Gerard Lam), the Philippines (Sarah Al-Khaldi), and South Korea (Chloe Cho and Julie Yoo). ).
CNA's longest-serving presenter, Glenda Chong, joined Mediacorp in December 1997, although not all of her 20 years were spent on camera. The Singaporean journalist spent three years in Shanghai as CNA's China correspondent from 2008 to 2011, during which time she covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the Sichuan earthquake that same year. Early in her career, she was named joint winner of the Best News Anchor award, together with her co-presenter Melvin Yong, at the 2001 Asian Television Awards.
The non-Singaporean presenters all joined CNA with prior broadcasting experience. Bahktiar, Al-Khaldi and Cho all served at CNBC Asia. Cho was also a contributing reporter for CNN World Report and was a news editor and anchor for Korean network ArirangTV. Cho's compatriot Yoo [34] also joined CNA from Arirang.
Tang, Yin and Singaporean Loke Wei Sue all had stints with China Central Television (CCTV). Tang has also worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and interned with Al Jazeera. Lam started his career with Malaysian network ntv7.
Correspondents
Channel NewsAsia has 17 correspondents at present, according to the network's website. This does not include unofficial or freelance correspondents.
Reflecting CNA's focus, the correspondents are all based in South-east Asia or East Asia. They include long-serving journalists such as Melissa Goh (Malaysia), who joined Mediacorp predecessor TCS in 1999, and Lim Yun Suk, who began covering her native South Korea for CNA in 2000 (with the exception of 2004 to 2006, when she joined Bloomberg).
Digital news
As an online brand in Singapore, Channel NewsAsia is a close second after The Straits Times, Singapore's leading newspaper, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Of 2,000 Singaporeans surveyed in late January and early February 2017, 44 per cent reported that they use the Straits Times weekly while 41 per cent keep up with CNA online. Online users also rated CNA higher than ST for accuracy and reliability (42% vs 39%), strong viewpoints (31% vs 28%) and for entertainment value (19% vs 17%).
Online push
In line with global newsroom trends since the turn of the decade, Channel NewsAsia's newsroom operates on a digital-first strategy. Priority is given to breaking news online - on the website, its mobile app and through social media - before putting the story out on other platforms.
The digital drive in both Mediacorp and Singapore Press Holdings newsrooms grew in pace following Singapore's 2011 General Election, dubbed the "Internet GE" by some following a stronger opposition showing although an Institute of Policy Studies survey of 2,000 Singaporeans concluded that the impact of online and social media was "overstated".
Mediacorp's digital-first pursuit was confirmed it appointed its first ever head of digital enterprise, Nick Fawbert, in July 2013. The strategy was underlined when Fawbert's replacement, Shane Mitchell, said on his arrival in March 2015 that one of his "first priorities is to work with colleagues across the organisation to implement a digital-first strategy in our delivery of key content and services - the news, for example".
In 2016, CNA's editorial staff moved into a "digital-first integrated newsroom" together with their counterparts from Mediacorp's newspaper TODAY and Mediacorp Radio, as Mediacorp moved into its new home in the one-north area, a purpose-built facility dubbed the Mediacorp Campus. In March 2017, then-CEO Shaun Seow launching the first phase of an extensive upgrade of its digital platforms while outlined Mediacorp's new digital focus in a memo to all staff, stressing the need for a digital-first approach in not just the newsrooms but within the Mediacorp conglomerate as a whole.
Website
The channelnewsasia.com domain was registered by Mediacorp on February 23, 1999, a week before the network's launch.
Channel NewsAsia's website has broad news coverage - with section landing pages for sports, lifestyle, health and technology - although its focus remains on Singapore and the Asia-Pacific, its first and second main sections, respectively.
According to Alexa, www.channelnewsasia.com is the 35th most popular website in Singapore - among news sites operated by Singapore media (both mainstream and alternative), CNA trails only The Straits Times.
As of March 20, 2018, www.channelnewsasia.com is ranked around 6,900 in the world. Nearly 58 per cent of visitors to www.channelnewsasia.com are from within Singapore, followed by 9.8% from the United States and 4.3% from China. Visitors spend an average of just over 3 mins on the CNA site and view 1.87 pages daily, with an average bounce rate of 64.4 percent.
Other online media
CNA has a large following on Facebook and Twitter. The network's programming is available on Mediacorp's over-the-top (OTT) service Toggle.
Criticism
As a part of the conglomerate Mediacorp Pte Ltd, which is a fully owned subsidiary of the Singapore government's sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, Channel NewsAsia is state-owned.
Editorial independence
Singapore's domestic media does not operate with the same unfettered freedom as under the libertarian or American model, which the government deems unworkable due to ethnic, religious and cultural differences.
According to the BBC's 2017 country profile of Singapore, its "media environment is highly controlled" and "self-censorship is common".
The ruling People's Action Party (PAP), which has formed the government since Singapore's independence on August 9, 1965, has "consciously maintained a 'national' media policy emphasising the nation-building role of media channels ... in avoiding the incitement of racial and religious hatreds within Singapore, or in neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia".
The two major media organisations in Singapore today are indeorp and newspaper publisher Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Although the latter is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, SPH has close ties to the government with current CEO Ng Yat Chung - who was appointed on September 1, 2017 - a former Chief of Defence Force.
Within Singapore's mainstream media, Channel NewsAsia is the only outlet primarily focused on regional audiences, which was made clear by the government at CNA's March 1, 1999, launch and when regional broadcasting commenced in September 2000. The network's mission of influence and countering Western influence was underlined by George Yeo, Singapore's Minister for Information & the Arts at the time of CNA's launch:
"Willy-nilly, the international media has become an inseparable part of the domestic political process. Recent events in Indonesia and Malaysia demonstrate how the international media not only report on political developments, they also influence the course of these political developments."
Yeo added that with the broadcaster's history and roots in Asia: "Channel NewsAsia's brand of journalism will reflect a different set of nuances and subtleties. Channel NewsAsia cannot displace the big boys but it can supplement what the big boys offer. Thoughtful Asian viewers would appreciate the different perspective that Channel NewsAsia brings."
A July 5, 2000, report in the Wall Street Journal noted that CNA's regional debut in September that year was "part of a broader campaign by Singapore to define itself as a regional finance and media centre". The report added that the "tiny Singaporean television channel" would be the "first news channel in the world to take on the two global giants, Time-Warner Inc.'s Cable News Network and British Broadcasting Corp., over an entire region". Underlining the challenge facing CNA, managing director of Hong Kong's Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. Robert Broadfoot told the WSJ: "Of all the countries in Asia, Singapore is the most strategic-thinking. But banking and telecom are the things they're good at, and they're having a hard time going regional there. And I don't think anybody would consider news one of their strengths."
Cognisant of scepticism about CNA's editorial independence and integrity, then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced plans to list Mediacorp on the stock exchange in his speech at the Channel NewsAsia (International) launch on September 28, 2000. He acknowledged that "some might harbour doubts about Channel NewsAsia's editorial independence".
However, the Wall Street Journal reported noted: "No target date for a stock-exchange listing has been set, nor is it known how much of MediaCorp might be listed." Mediacorp remains under Temasek ownership today.
Lack of differentiation
Beyond criticism of a lack of editorial independence in reporting on domestic politics, Channel NewsAsia's key differentiation in claiming to offer news from an Asian perspective has been questioned.
In an extensive 2003 study comparing 176 reports from CNA and 255 from CNN, Kalai Natarajan and Hao Xiaoming said that there were "no significant differences between CNA and CNN in terms of their news focus on conflicts in Asia". Setting out to test the assumption that CNA "understands Asia" better, Natarajan and Hao worked with hypotheses which included: That CNA would place less emphasis on negative conflicts in reports on Asia, and that CNA would report more on developments than its Western counterparts.
"Of all the stories, 55.9% of CNA's and 51.4% of CNN's contained elements of conflict" while "further analysis of the news topics covered by the two channels showed that both CNA and CNN reported heavily on politics, wars, business, disasters, and crimes, with the majority of their stories concentrating on these topics", they concluded. Furthermore, war and terrorism in Asia emerged as the topic most covered by CNA (26%) while CNN concentrated most on politics (33%).
See also
- Media of Singapore
References
External links
- Channel NewsAsia (English)
- SG Press Centre
- Channel NewsAsia Live Streaming
Source of article : Wikipedia
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