Sad Times. Synovate's latest readership stat is bad news for Kalimullah Hassan: his
New Straits Times' readership is now nearly
ONE MILLION less than rivals T
he Star. And
theSun is rising.
To add to NST's woes, The
Malay Mail, which was the fastest growing English-language daily in 2003, a year before Kalimullah was sent to NSTP as its GEIC, is now the least-read of all dailies in all languages, according to
Synovate.
Synovate, yes. AC Nielsen, no.Two years ago, there was no Synovate. The gap between
NST and
The Star was only about 600,000, according to AC Nielsen. But Kalimullah refused to believe it: he had shrunk the NST's size, gave away many luxury cars to readers, and brought in his foreign-trained journalist friends to replace the "old" editors. He accused AC Nielsen of being bias in their readership surveys and, with the help of theSun, started a campaign against AC Nielsen. He went to the extent of soliciting the PM 's support to fight his battle with AC Nielsen and
The Star. The PM was "bemused",
wrote The Star, when NST asked him to comment on the NST-AC Nielsen "dispute".
Kalimullah then brought in Synovate
to prove he was right.The first time around, Synovate gave
NST a readership of
530,000 (from the 300,000-plus AC Nielsen gave it) and around 1.1 million for
The Star.
But last week's numbers show that
NST is continuing to lose readership while
The Star keeps pulling away. Will Kalimullah, now the Editorial Adviser and Deputy Chairman of NSTP, seek a third opinion to prove Synovate and AC Nielsen wrong? Will he turn to the PM for help again this time around?