Tham Khai Wor has weathered four recessions in his 31 years with Singapore Press Holdings. But none can compare with the speed and devastation from the twin blows of the Iraq war and Sars.
The "chief salesman" of Singapore's largest newspaper group survived the city's first serious recession in the mid-80s, the prolonged agony after the first Gulf conflict and the 1997 Asian financial flu ("from which this region has never fully recovered").
But the latest disasters top them all. "This time all businesses suddenly stopped and everything went straight down," says the executive vice-president of SPH's marketing division.
SPH responded with a rate cut on its key newspapers - the Straits Times, Sunday Times, Business Times and the Chinese-language Lianhe Zaobao. The move will result in a seven-digit loss in ad revenue. This is the second time SPH has chopped rates - the first was in the 1991 Gulf war - to counter a weak ad climate. The first rate cut saw revenues fall by about 18 per cent. "We want to play a part to all our advertisers and show that we share their burden," he says.
"There has been some recovery in advertising revenue. It has bottomed out, barring major mishaps from now."
The battle from here on is to convince advertisers to stick with the known over the novelty of the new at a time when media deregulation has unleashed tempting new choices. "In such a difficult situation it is time for all businesses to rely on the medium that has been proven to work for the last 20 years. This is not the time to experiment with different media."
With rival MediaCorp venturing into print and SPH's expansion beyond print, there is now a real and ferocious battle for audience and advertisers being waged across the media industry. MediaCorp's brash upstart Today - the free English-language daily - brought to an end a virtual monopoly SPH enjoyed after the Singapore Monitor closed in the late '80s.
For its counter-attack, SPH found its afternoon paper the New Paper, which has a paid subscription base, just wasn't the right vehicle for the task. Tham, who was tasked to organise SPH's sales and marketing offensive against the Monitor in 1984, now had to formulate a new battle plan. The result was Streats, a free tabloid that launched in September 2001.
By last year, the paper only achieved a readership base of 324,000, according to ACNielsen's media index. A change in strategy was implemented last November. New members were deployed for the editorial team and the paper was delivered free to houses, condominiums and central business districts.
The print run was boosted from 250,000 to 280,000. Amid the Sars and war crises, Tham found cause for celebration: a study by Synovate found that Streats' readership had soared to 800,000. One outcome, however, is what Tham describes as "a redistribution of advertising budget or what some people call cannibalisation" among its papers. But it's not enough to dent his satisfaction of knowing that "at the end of the day we're still ahead by a couple of points".
One thing that clearly rankles though is the industry's comment on the competition's flexible ad offers. "We used ink with orange and strawberry scents in the early '80s. We used iron-on transfer ink in reverse to be ironed on T-shirt for consumer products. We have had fancy shaped ads, luminous ink ads, inserts, stickers, wrap arounds. We've done it hundreds of times. Now the competitors do it and people say wow so innovative," Tham says with a hint of a fume.
From the sounds of it, there's certainly a fight or two left in this newspaper veteran in the next three years before he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 62.
THAM: ON THE RECORD
Growing pains Going through difficulties makes people better these days, just like babies falling about but they will grow smarter.
Crisis lessons In the Sars period, Orchard Road shops were hurt badly but the suburban shops were not. People would still go out in suburban areas. You cannot just depend on the Orchard Road brands and the Orchard Road retailers.
Sars storm In a financial crisis, it goes by the financial industry first and then other sectors. With this one everything came to a standstill.
No one travels and hotels have never had single digit occupancy.
Dollar savers In recession, don't try to tell people to buy a 10 kilo tin of Milo. You should sell a two to three kilo tin of Milo. Teach people how to be economical, how to stretch their dollar.
Burdens of leadership As a leader we have a lot of difficulties because we have to be moving ahead all the time. The moment you start something, it's outdated the next day. And then the competition will copy.