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News organizations globally are being disrupted in the digital era
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We spoke to Singapore Press Holding to find out how its business is embracing technological change
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Anthony Tan: For the longest time the whole value chain in producing a newspaper had its
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Anthony Tan: own tempo. When the digital onslaught came, things moved at lightning speed.
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Anthony Tan: The opportunity for a company like Singapore Press Holdings which has traditionally
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Anthony Tan: been rather local-based because we publish newspapers and newspapers were
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Anthony Tan: physical. They used to work with newspaper vendors and it was a well-oiled
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Anthony Tan: system. Today, they have to work with platforms like Google, working out how a
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Anthony Tan: tool like Subscribe with Google or Google Analytics could help us.
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Balancing a data-driven approach with editorial judgment
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Anthony Tan: The audience actually gives you the feedback in what they read, in what they interact with.
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Anthony Tan: The newsroom had to start looking at data, about what people were looking at,
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Anthony Tan: what time of the day they were looking at it. But being audience-first and
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Anthony Tan: audience-centric also sometimes needs you to remove yourself from following
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Anthony Tan: what exactly they want so there's always a very deliberate process of how
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Anthony Tan: we then select what stories to pursue and long features that we pursue which
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Anthony Tan: may make sense in the longer run and not driven by short-term algorithms.
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Developing new capabilities for the digital era
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Anthony Tan: For the first time in the company we had a role called the Chief Product Officer,
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Anthony Tan: we have product managers, we have a design thinking team. Some of these roles never
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Anthony Tan: existed in the newsroom. There were new capabilities. We took inspiration not
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Anthony Tan: only from news organizations that moved a bit ahead of us in the digitization
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Anthony Tan: curve, we also went to look at other companies and said what are the best
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Anthony Tan: lessons we can take from them, what is it you do that your consumer keeps coming
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Anthony Tan: back, what are the skills and capabilities we lack?
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Bringing measurability and effectiveness to advertisers
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Anthony Tan: We are a company that provides multi-platform measurability.
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Anthony Tan: The ideas gleaned from Google Ad Manager, the way it is done, how
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Anthony Tan: programmatic ads are done digital ads are done.
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Anthony Tan: We are now trying to put in some of these lessons and where technically
possible try to do the same bit on
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Anthony Tan: measurability and effectiveness for our advertisers.
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Anthony Tan: In the past the digital platforms were competitors then people coined terms — frenemy.
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Anthony Tan: What does frenemy mean?
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Anthony Tan: I think in the spirit of it, I would define it as being able to cooperate
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Anthony Tan: where it makes sense to. The ability for us then therefore as a news organization
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Anthony Tan: to continue doing what we have been doing in a better way, reach out to more
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Anthony Tan: them, inform, educate, help people make sense of the world, understand the world,
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Anthony Tan: maybe learn the lessons, and histories of the world, and maybe make the world
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Anthony Tan: a better place going forward.
