Mediacorp
Mediacorp Pte. Ltd. is the state-owned media conglomerate of Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the investment arm of the Government of Singapore—it owns and operates television channels, radio, and digital media properties. It is currently headquartered at the Mediapolis development in Queenstown's One-north precinct, which succeeded Caldecott Hill, the long-time home of its predecessors, in 2015. As of 2022, Mediacorp employs over 3,000 employees; a large number of them are in both public and private sector broadcasting.
The company forms half of the mass media duopoly in the country alongside SPH Media Trust; the company was established in its current form in 1999, following the 1994 privatization of one of its predecessors—the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation —as a group of state-owned enterprises known as Singapore International Media.
Mediacorp holds a monopoly on terrestrial television in Singapore, operating six channels broadcasting in the official languages of English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, as well as the streaming service meWatch. It also operates eleven radio stations, and the websites Today and 8days—both of which had previously operated as print publications.
Its monopoly on terrestrial television was briefly broken in the early-2000s by SPH MediaWorks. In 2004, amid struggles at its two channels, SPH sold the MediaWorks subsidiary to MediaCorp in exchange for stakes in its television and publishing businesses; only its Chinese-language Channel U would continue under MediaCorp. SPH divested its stake in MediaCorp in 2017 after Today ceased print publication.
History
1925–1965: Pre-independence era
First experiments
The history of radio broadcasting in Singapore began with the formation of the Amateur Wireless Society of Malaya in April 1925, which launched shortwave transmission from a studio in the Union Building at Collyer Quay using a 100-watt transmitter lent by the Marconi Company under callsign 1SE. The transmissions could be received as far as Penang, albeit with atmospheric interferences at times. In 1930, Sir Earl from the Singapore Port Authority commenced its short wave broadcast every fortnight either on Sundays or Wednesdays. The Empire Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation was inaugurated on 19 December 1932, broadcasting on shortwave and aimed principally at English speakers across the British Empire. In his first Christmas Message, King George V characterised the service as intended for "men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them". First hopes for the Empire Service were low. The Director General, Sir John Reith, said in the opening programme:Don't expect too much in the early days; for some time we shall transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for the service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good.
In 1933, Radio ZHI was launched as the first professional shortwave broadcasting station in Singapore. Owned by the Radio Service Company of Malaya, it was a shortwave radio station that delivered static-free broadcasts. Radio ZHI acquired a loyal following in Singapore and abroad. Despite its success, the station closed at the end of December 1936 when its license expired because the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation was granted the status of having the radio monopoly.
British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation
The British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation was created on 12 April 1935 with a nominal capital of $500,000, formed on 21 July 1935 and awarded a broadcasting license by the British crown on 1 June 1936 as a radio network. The station was initially scheduled to start broadcasting in 1935, but was subsequently delayed to 1936 due to initial government uncertainties. The station broadcast from the hill on Thomson Road. ZHL made its first broadcast of Chinese music on 10 June 1936 as an experiment. The BMBC conducted auditions in November 1936. On 1 March 1937 at 6pm, its studios and transmitters at Caldecott Hill were officially opened by Governor of the Straits Settlements Shenton Thomas, aiming at a potential target audience of 10,000 listeners.In a move to adjust its budget, BMBC cut the number of weekly hours in late June 1937, from the initial 34 3/4 hours to 28 3/4. The Sunday schedule was cut from seven hours to four: before the revision, the daytime period ran from 11am to 1:30pm and the evening period from 5:30pm to 10pm. This was cut to 11:30am to 1:30pm for the daytime period and 6pm to 8pm for the evening period. On weekdays the schedule ran from 6pm to 10pm, simply cutting the last quarter hour on air. On Saturdays, the afternoon period remained in the 12:45pm to 2pm slot, but the evening period, starting at 6pm, now ended at 9:35pm instead of 11:15pm. This also prompted ZHL to reduce the number of artists to those able to perform without paying fees. Juvenile sessions were dropped because the artists had paid more. The existing charter suggested that the daily schedule would last at least four hours, with extensions depending on listener feedback. Any potential expansion was hampered purely by lack of budget. The monthly income was of $3,500, $2,500 from the licence and $1,000 from the Municipality. There were hopes to increase the income due to the start of sponsored programmes. Plans for shortwave broadcasting had been outlined in July 1937, despite concerns over the quality of its reception. In its first trimester on air, the BMBC was operating at a loss, a cause of "grave concern" for the staff.
Work on the shortwave BMBC station started in October 1937, aiming at a March 1938 launch date. The station was to broadcast at a frequency of 31.48 meters daytime and 49.9 meters nighttime. The programming would be the same as the existing medium wave ZHL station.
In January 1938, it was announced that the BMBC would cease receiving its monthly $1,000 grant from the municipality effective the end of February. In the year ending February 28, 1938, the BMBC was operating at a net profit of $275.88; compared to the loss of $5,368.67 The number of listeners now stood at 4,213, up from the initial figure of 2,598 - even so, the figure was relatively lower than the planned target of 10,000 in the formal launch the previous year. Ahead of the start of the shortwave service, it was reported that it would be picked up by over 9,000 radio receivers in Malaya - combined with over 4,000 in Singapore, the number of potential listeners was going to increase threefold. The station started on 19 July 1938 under the callsign ZHP attracting an audience not just in Malaya, but also in Sarawak, Borneo and the Dutch Indies, especially in tin mines and rubber estates.
Thanks to the wider coverage range of ZHP, ZHL was able to broadcast more sporting events, namely horse races, tennis and the football, specifically the Malayan Cup. Before the change in policy, it was more likely for attendees to go to the matches.
The shortwave frequency moved in on 1 October 1938 from 30.96 meters to 48.58 meters, under the new callsign ZHO, at the request of the Posts and Telegraphs Department. The extant medium wave frequency remained unchanged.
In February 1939, the government started giving aid to the BMBC. The listener base was by then upgraded to 15,000 listeners: 5,000 in Singapore, a further 5,000 in the Federated Malay States, 2,000 in Penang, 1,000 in Johor and 350 in Malacca. Statistically, out of the 5,104 licence holders in Singapore, 2,574 were Europeans and Eurasians, 2,023 were Chinese, 219 were Malays, 195 were Indians, 87 were Japanese and six were Siamese. The shortwave transmitter carrying ZHO upgraded its power in mid-1939, from 400 watts to 2 kilowatts. At the 1939 Annual Report, there were plans to create two separate services, an -hour European service and a -hour Asiatic one. Included in the proposal was the creation of a second medium wave transmitter for the two programmes to be delivered from the extant facilities. Subsequently, a second plan to increase the power of the shortwave transmitter was held in early 1940, this time increasing its coverage to reach out to the entirety of Malaya, Borneo, the Netherlands Indies and Siam. Much of the equipment used was already manufactured in Singapore.
Malaya Broadcasting Corporation
The corporation was taken over by the Straits Settlements government in 1940 as a part of the British Department of Information, subsequently nationalised and reorganised as the Malaya Broadcasting Corporation, the local counterpart to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Additional French programming was added on 16 September 1940.In order to counter German propaganda, a second shortwave transmitter was added on 29 September 1940, ZHP 3. The station carried a special programme in German on Friday nights from 10pm to 10:30pm. The remainder of the line-up consisted of music and news, in Hindustani, Dutch, Tamil, Arabic and French. ZHL and ZHP 1 carried primarily content in English and Chinese dialects, with some Malay programming as well. By April 1941 ZHP 2 was activated. The station was merely a relayer of ZHL's output, that was also heard on ZHP 1.
Syonan Broadcasting Station
During World War II, when the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Singapore from 1942 to 1945, the radio station on the island of Singapore was seized by the Japanese authorities and renamed Syonan Hoso Kyoku, the local counterpart to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasts under the new administration started on 13 March 1942 and broadcast over three frequencies, one in medium wave for within Singapore, another to relay output from Tokyo and a shortwave frequency aimed at the time in Australia. After repairs, broadcasts officially started on 28 March. Programming was at the outset of occupation airing daily from 7pm to 10pm with an additional hour-long period from 10am to 11am for educational programming. Programming was still in the same mix of languages as before but content in Japanese was added.In June 1942, the Syonan station broadcast Japanese language learning classes to students, installing sets in 87 schools.
During occupation, a confidential British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service was carried out by the UK to its occupied territories, briefly having its offices at Caldecott Hill. The facilities were later used as a relay station for the BBC.