MEDIA 'LIBERALIZATION' RIP

Singapore's bold 'experiment' in media liberalization ended on Friday.

Now, instead of two government-linked companies offering television broadcasting and newspapers, we will again have... err.. two government-linked companies that will cooperate in offering television stations and newspapers.

In practice, that means instead of two almost identical free English-language tabloids we will now have one. And instead of two English-language entertainment-driven television station we will, likely, again have one.

Admittedly, the free newspapers were nice. But they differed very little from the Straits Times in terms of content, so the loss of the horridly named Streats ('Treats for the Street') is not a tremendous one.

To be honest, I somewhat welcome the end of the 'competition' that was introduced to the television market. In effect, it only resulted in the dumbing-down of the original English-language entertainment station, TCS 5. Over the past two years, in an effort to 'compete' for viewers, the station started to bump most of its intelligent English-language fare to after-midnight time slots.

Essentially, it discovered that in a country where English is a second language for most people - dialogue-driven programs didn't really attract viewers. It was better to offer jiggle shows like Temptation Island and cerebral stuff like World Wrestling Entertainment in prime-time. It pushed intelligent programs like the West Wing, 24, the Sopranos and Buffy to well past my bedtime.

The big losers in this will be advertisers, who will now again be gouged by a media monopoly. For viewers and readers, there will be a little less choice - but it was only an artificial choice to begin with, so most people won't really give a toss.

For me, the Internet and cable television, with its limited offerings and censored versions of Six Feet Under, were and remain the only truly enjoyable media outlets here.

While allowing truly unregulated broadcasting and newspapers would have been progressive, the era of faux media liberalization that just ended was less than inspiring.

Still, hopefully its 'failure' won't deter the authorities from allowing future experiments. They are still considering allowing (regulated) sattelite-dish subscription services to compete with the monopoly cable operator.

Other than that, we'll just have to wait for the development of wideband Internet broadcasting (which makes us pretty much like everyone in Canada who is awaiting the arrival of Fox News).