Singapore’s English-language broadcasters lauded

Thursday 08 Sep 2011
While Singaporean broadcasters were commended for providing quality content, recommendations were made for further improvement in some areas, such as in protecting children from unsuitable content, editorial integrity in news and producing more quality local content, newspaper Today reports.

Programme Advisory Committee for English Programmes (PACE) chairman Leo Tan said that he would rate English programming here 7.5 out of 10, whereas two years ago, he would have given it only a six.

The PACE report, compiled by a 31-member committee, commended broadcasters for the “strong emphasis” on sports programmes last year. It singled out coverage of the Youth Olympic Games by MediaCorp, as well as locally-produced programmes Sports@SG by Channel 5 and Score by SingTel’s mioTV. MediaCorp also received praise for its coverage of the general election.

The committee also gave the thumbs-up to increased coverage of the arts and culture scene.

Educational content has also grown and resulted in “a considerable amount” of programmes for pre-school children, said PACE.

The committee urged broadcasters to produce more quality local content, such as those which promote inter-generational bonding, targeting the elderly, in future.

Mr Tan said: “The ageing population by 2030 will have five times the number of elderly over 65, it pays actually for broadcasters to have more programmes about healthy living, financial management in retirement. Besides, it will draw revenue from advertisers because this is a very large group.”

PACE also suggested injecting local elements into foreign content by tying up with overseas production houses.