CNA’s 25th anniversary: Mediacorp’s news network announces plans to scale up growth in regional and international markets
These plans were announced at CNA’s 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner, held this evening at Capella Singapore with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as Guest-of-Honour.
Addressing a celebratory gathering of 300 guests, Mediacorp Chairman Niam Chiang Meng affirmed CNA’s commitment to continue evolving to meet the demands of a changing global mediascape: “We aim to be present at every touchpoint in people’s lives, engaging them through a combination of our own platforms and third-party platforms. This multiplatform approach is anchored on our understanding of how people consume content today – across platforms and devices, languages, and genres.”
Since its launch in Singapore in March 1999, CNA has grown from a local news channel to a network consumed around the world, reaching more than 94 million homes and hotel rooms in Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Digitally, CNA content is consumed by an average of more than 10 million unique visitors every month [1]. On YouTube, CNA has a combined four million subscribers and over 27 million views per month for its CNA and CNA Insider channels. Its strong presence on YouTube has introduced the brand to a growing international audience, with the US being one of the top three markets in terms of watch time for its content [2]. The brand has also earned recognition on the global stage, having garnered more than 500 international awards and accolades in the past decade. Please refer to the Annex for a list of key milestones since CNA’s establishment in 1999.
Fresh initiatives to expand audiences and enhance offerings
With an eye towards fostering further growth, CNA has embarked on developments aimed at building its existing base, meeting new needs, and engaging untapped audiences beyond Singapore:
Making inroads in the US, Canada, and the UK: The CNA brand will be introduced in North America, Canada, and the United Kingdom across a combination of platforms: television streaming services, YouTube, and a curated edition of the CNA website. The roll out will be conducted in phases over this year. This undertaking will cater to people in these regions who are looking for breaking news and insightful documentaries about Asia – in particular China, Japan, and Korea.
Strengthening depth of coverage on China: As part of its expansion strategy and to deepen its on-ground understanding and reporting of China-related news, CNA plans to augment its mix of TV and digital bureaus, with plans to open a new bureau in Shenzhen, and potentially station more correspondents at its Beijing and Shanghai bureaus.
Introducing East Asia Tonight: Audiences can also look forward to a new one-hour bulletin, East Asia Tonight. Airing on CNA every weekday at 6pm from April. Through a combination of ground reporting of the latest developments, original in-depth features and expert analysis, CNA will seek to help audiences around the world to better “Understand Asia”.
Adopting AI to debut a Bahasa Indonesia website: Tapping on a large audience profile closer to home, CNA has launched cna.id, a website in Bahasa Indonesia. To achieve this milestone, CNA’s first digital foray beyond English, CNA signed a research collaboration agreement with Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to build an English-to-Bahasa Indonesia AI translation tool. A dedicated team of Bahasa Indonesia editors then checks these translated as well as original news reports and features before publishing them.
Providing more engaging content experiences: Continuing to harness AI, CNA has introduced AI-generated summaries (FAST) for articles on the CNA app. Launched on 18 March, the FAST feature uses AI large language models to extract key sentences from stories. These are vetted by the CNA editorial team before publication, providing time-pressed readers with an option to sample content quickly and efficiently when on the go. This feature will be launched on the website soon.
Earlier this year, CNA also introduced a text-to-speech conversion to enable readers to listen to digital stories; and improved its personalised experiences with MyFeed, a feature which allows readers to select and receive more stories on topics of interest to them.
Mediacorp Editor-in-Chief & Chief Sustainability Officer Walter Fernandez said: “CNA’s Silver Jubilee marks a significant milestone in our journey as CNA goes global.”
Added Mr Fernandez: “In the past decade, CNA has won more than 500 international awards for its outstanding content; CNA was named ‘Channel of the Year’ by the London-based Association for International Broadcasting in November 2020; and two years later CNA was named the global winner of the ‘Best News Website or Mobile Service’ by the World Association of News Publishers. Building on this track record of high-quality content and engaging programming, CNA has set its sights on being the global news source to ‘Understand Asia’. The next leg of CNA’s growth will focus on expanding our coverage and sharpening the nuance of our reporting about China; while growing our global audience particularly in North America and Europe.”
[1] Source: Adobe Analytics, April 2023 – February 2024
[2] Source: YouTube Studio
Annex: Key brand milestones
|
Year |
Milestone |
|
1999 |
News and current affairs channel Channel NewsAsia launches on Free-to-Air TV in Singapore |
|
2000 |
Channel NewsAsia launches Asian feed reaching five million homes & hotel rooms in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines |
|
2001 |
Channel NewsAsia reaches 12 million homes in 15 territories including the Philippines, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates |
|
2002 |
Channel NewsAsia begins broadcast in Hong Kong through Hong Kong Cable's digital service |
|
2004 |
Channel NewsAsia and Thailand Cable TV Association sign agreement officially launching the channel’s carriage in Thailand. |
|
2004 |
Channel NewsAsia signs carriage license agreement with MiTV, marking its inaugural presence in Malaysia. |
|
2004 |
Channel NewsAsia secures broadcast rights in China. Distribution hits 16.4 million homes and hotels rooms in 18 territories across Asia |
|
2012 |
Apple iOS app launched |
|
2013 |
Channel NewsAsia starts 24-hour transmission with the tagline 'Understand Asia' |
|
2013 |
Google Play Store App launched |
|
2014 |
Channel NewsAsia launches bureau in Myanmar, Yangon, one of only four foreign news organisations licensed to operate in the country |
|
2014 |
Channel NewsAsia achieves its milestone of 50M homes and hotel rooms across Asia |
|
2014 |
Channel NewsAsia launches its Smart TV App on Samsung TVs |
|
2015 |
Channel NewsAsia switches to High-Definition transmission |
|
2015 |
Channel NewsAsia launches on Tata Sky, reaching 14 million subscribers in India |
|
2017 |
Channel NewsAsia begins transmission from new Mediacorp campus at one-north |
|
2017 |
Channel NewsAsia revamps app and website for tablet and mobile devices |
|
2017 |
Channel NewsAsia achieves its milestone of 75M homes & hotel rooms across Asia |
|
2018 |
Channel NewsAsia launches CNAlifestyle.com, a lifestyle portal targeted at professionals, managers, executives, and businessmen (PMEBs) |
|
2018 |
Channel NewsAsia launches on Astro, the dominant satellite pay-TV platform in Malaysia |
|
2019 |
Channel NewsAsia streams 24/7 on YouTube |
|
2019 |
Channel NewsAsia rebranded to “CNA” to reflect transmedia multiplatform identity. New logo launched |
|
2019 |
CNAI launches its High-Definition broadcast across Asia |
|
2019 |
Launch of CNA |
|
2020 |
Named “Channel of the Year” by the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) |
|
2021 |
Wins Hinzpeter Award for coverage of police violence during protests |
|
2022 |
Named global winner of Best News Website or Mobile Service at World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) Digital Media Awards Worldwide |
|
2023 |
CNA remains the most trusted news brand in Singapore for the fifth consecutive year since 2019, according to a report by the Reuters Institute for Journalism at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom |
