The readership of most newspapers in Malaysia has fallen significantly over the past two years, according to market research firm AC Nielsen.

Time magazine in its latest Asia edition of Oct 16 reported that the Nielsen's study found that since 1998, the readership of major newspapers such as New Straits Times has dropped 27%, while Malay-language Berita Harian plunged 30% and Utusan Malaysia fell 27%.

Only two papers - The Star and Guang Ming - recorded slight increases in daily readership in 1999, with an increase of 5.4% and 11.8% respectively. Malay Mail , whose readership tumbled 37.5%, was the biggest loser among the dailies (See table below).

Going down

Source: AC Neilsen Mid Year Media Index, Sept 2000

Newspaper
1999

'000

2000

'000

Variance
The Star
969
1,021
+5.4
New Straits Times
557
491
-11.8
Malay Mail
168
105
-37.5
Sun
205
145
-28.8
Sin Chew Jit Poh
891
847
-4.9
China Press
553
507
-8.3
Nanyang
522
496
-5.0
Kwong Wah
272
268
-1.5
Guang Ming

204
228
+11.8
Berita Harian
1,560
1,404
-10
Utusan Malaysia
1,538
1,420
-7.7
Harian Metro
412
370
-10.2
Nanban
182
174
-4.4
Tamil Nesan
104
101
-2.9

According to Time , Nielsen has interpreted the numbers as possibly indicating that more Malaysians are spending more time on the Internet and pay TV, and less with print.

Malaysiakini.com, which has a readership higher than some of the major dailies, is among the Internet websites cited by Time as one of the factors in luring readers away from the mainstream newspapers.

Zulkifli Sulong, editor of PAS newspaper Harakah , told Time that the Anwar Ibrahim affair made people realise that they were not getting both sides of the story.

Harakah saw a five-fold circulation jump when it started reporting openly on the Anwar saga. Although the government restricted its sales, Zulkifli responded by launching the Harakahdaily.com, which now claims to have more than 140,000 pageviews a day.

The international magazine reported that while the online readership has declined somewhat since the peak of the Anwar trial, the editors of the news websites believe that the numbers of users are stabilising and will grow again.

Moreover, the existence of on-line media is putting pressure on its print cousins.

"In the past few months, there has been much more critical thinking in the mainstream media," said Kadir Jasin, chairman of Malaysia's news agency Bernama .

Kadir said that mass media organs - most linked to the ruling coalition - are responding to the reform within the coalition's leading party Umno in the wake of its poor performance in last November's general elections.

"If these changes take hold, outlets like Malaysiakini.com could become redundant very quickly," said Kadir, who recently left the New Straits Times Group, but was given its magazines company, Berita Publishing for a nominal sum of RM1.

[#1]Cracks in the system[/#], Time