KPMG and PwC said to have approved of SPH Media's double counting

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The WhatsApp message below appears to be that which is referred to in the Today Online story Explainer: What are circulation and readership figures and why does the SPH Media saga matter?

It includes this startling claim:

This has been industry  practice, endorsed by every external auditor SPH has used, whether KPMG or PriceWaterhouse, and every SPH main board led by the likes of Lim Kim San or Tony Tan. 

KPMG and PwC have much explaining to do.

TO BE READ WITH 

 So it seems like the fraudulent numbers aren’t new, and it’s been a long time practice. The new CEO is considered a crusader (some would call her foolish and naive), and she’s been auditing this and that. It seems she opened up a GIANT can of worms with the figures and now those who know about this open secret are scrambling left, right, sideways, backsides to PRETEND they KNOW NOTHING. 

Those 3 guys were merely just continuing the system and were made eazy convenient scapegoats.

Here are just some of the facts: 

1.  Since more than two decades ago, the Audit Bureau of Circulation has accepted as legitimate:

a) that bulk sale of, say, 1,000 copies of the ST to, for example, a shopping mall for free distribution to its shoppers be counted as 1,000 circulated copies. Even if only half were actually picked up (the leftovers  would be sold as scrap for recycling but never dumped into the sea, as some claimed. I challenge anyone to show me a photo of hundreds or thousands of copies of ST or ZB floating in Kallang River or Changi Beach.

This has been industry  practice, endorsed by every external auditor SPH has used, whether KPMG or PriceWaterhouse, and every SPH main board led by the likes of Lim Kim San or Tony Tan. 

So I would be very careful before making allegations of fraud and collusion.

b) the inclusion under circulation numbers of management copies sent free to advertising agencies as well as advertisers so they could show their principals the ads they paid for.  All above board, sanctioned by ABC. 

2)  If a household pays for a print copy as well as a digital subscription, ABC allows that sale to be counted as two copies. In some other countries, if the digital subscription covers an e-paper or PDF version, the publisher can and often does claim a count of three!  SPH kept it as two. 

So this is legitimate "double counting", not cheating or inflating.

These are just two examples. Newspaper publishing is not a simple business. But here we have those who have not taken the trouble to check and understand jumping in and letting loose ill-informed, possibly slanderous, invectives.

The root of it is a new management telling a half-baked story to explain the sacking of three leftover senior staff who had served the company faithfully for years and years, only to see this spun out of control, resulting in severe damage to its newspapers.. via