Can the Malay Mail move from a free to a paid model?

The Malay Mail editor in chief, Yushaimi Yahaya, said in a release that the paper, which has been an afternoon edition since its launch in 1896, had to make the move to a morning edition because technology had taken away the advantage it once had. “Consumers today get late breaking news through alerts on their phones, iPads and the internet,” he said.

However, the return to a paid model from a free daily however has raised eyebrows.

“It would be very difficult for a free paper to go back to a paid model. I can’t recall that this has ever happened before and succeeded,” commented Andy Miller, CEO of Vizeum Malaysia. “I would be interested to see if they can pull this off, I wish them all the best but I won’t be betting on their success.”

The paper plans to transition to a paid model over the coming weeks. At present it has no precise date or price for the release of its first paid paper. To differentiate itself from existing paid dailies and to justify its decision to charge its readers, The Malay Mail  plans to abandon its position as a human-interest title for one that “reports news without any fear or favour,” said Yushaimi. 

“We will focus on in-depth investigative reports on issues that impact our readers and Malaysians in general.  Our content will set us apart from the competition. We believe there is a demand for such content and we are well positioned to fill that void,” he said, adding that surveys had indicated readers were willing to pay for such content.

Roy Tan, managing director of Carat  pointed out that The Malay Mail was clearly interested in leveraging the capabilities of its new executive editor – award-winning top investigative journalist Terence Fernandez, who left free English-language daily The Sun to join The Malay Mail in July.

“While it will be a difficult move, the truth is The Malay Mail can no longer sustain the high print-run needed to maintain its position as a free daily. However, by moving to the paid model, the paper will be able to control its circulation, thus cutting overheads, and if they have a great product hopefully people will be willing to pay for it,” said Tan.

The main difficulty, he added, will be appeasing advertisers if there is a drop in circulation figures.

The Malay Mail has gone through several iterations in its 115-year history.  Launched as an afternoon edition that focused on community news and featuring a “Page 3 Girl”, the paper was once a subsidiary of English daily the New Straits Times Press (NSTP). In 1997, it was the most profitable arm of the NSTP thanks to its’ strong classifieds section – a lead it ceded to Malaysia’s lead English daily The Star in 1998.

In 2004, NSTP made a strategic decision to focus solely on the New Straits Times, in 2006, The Malay Mail was sold to free-to-air broadcaster Media Prima which relaunched it in 2008 as a free afternoon paper.

By this time the paper’s circulation had slid from its peak of over 60,000 in the mid-1980s to about 20,000. Business Times Singapore reported that the paper’s advertising revenue likewise plummeted from RM70 million (US$22.6 million) in 1997 to RM10 million a year.

The paper was sold again in 2009 to the Redberry Group, a subsidiary of Ancom Bhd and it is understood that the paper may have run into financial trouble.

When contacted for comment, Yushaimi was unable to release any additional information beyond what was contained in the release, but promised updates over the next few weeks.