• Singapore’s Media Industry Charting Strong Growth
• Fast Growing Sub-sector - Interactive & Digital Media
• A Centre for Producing New Content
• A Platform Where East Meets West
• Broadcast Hub of Asia Moves into Content
• Access to Media Financing
• Asia’s First Digital Cinema Hub
• A Leading Interactive and Digital Media Education Centre

Singapore’s media sector has been performing strongly, posting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.0% between 1995 and 2005. In 2005, The industry contributed S$4.9 billion in value-added (VA) and S$18.2 billion revenue to the economy, employing some 53,000 workers. Singapore’s media sector consists of several industries, including TV broadcast and production; publishing and printing; film; music; as well as interactive and digital media.

Interactive & Digital media – which includes video games, animation, online/mobile media and new forms of digital entertainment – has skyrocketed into a multi-billion dollar business. The global videogames industry is expected to swell from US$41.9 billion in 2007 to US$68.3 billion by 2012, with Asia registering the fastest growth, according to the PriceWaterhouse Coopers’ Global Entertainment & Media Outlook. The animation industry is estimated at US$160 billion as at 2008.

Singapore’s animation and games industries are seeing rapid expansion. Singapore is seeing an influx of leading digital media companies such as Koei, Lucasfilm, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Local companies like Mikoishi, Peach Blossom Media and ST Electronics (Digital Media) have also responded eagerly too, producing original content for export and entering strategic partnerships with international distributors.

Online and mobile media companies are not far behind. In fact, online media is the fastest growing media industry, growing at a CAGR of 19.9% from 2000 to 2005 to contribute S$360 million in VA in 2005.

Singapore is an ideal location for creating and deploying new content and for managing intellectual property (IP), as it has the best IP protection in Asia and a large, multilingual talent pool in both traditional and new media. Development and animation studios, and companies which provide game hosting will also find Singapore attractive due to the island’s large pool of graduates in IT and programming. For companies in the printing and publishing sector, Singapore is a nexus for Asian financial and professional news, and a cost-effective printing and distribution hub.

Singapore offers proximity and excellent connectivity to regional markets – markets that have a tremendous appetite for digital media entertainment. As a cosmopolitan, urbanised Asian city-state, it offers a unique blend of Eastern and Western cultural influences. The government has also put in place policies to attract and retain talent from all over the world, creating a melting pot of creative talent for companies to tap into.

Since the 1990s, Singapore has attracted a number of global broadcasters to its shores. There are now a large number of major networks uplinking their channels from Singapore to their regional audiences. These include BBC Worldwide, CNBC Asia Pacific and ESPN Star Sports. From broadcast, the sector has progressed into content production. One example is the 2007 AXN reality series “The Contender Asia”. Co-produced by Singapore’s Imagine OmniMedia and US-based Mark Burnett Productions, the project was filmed entirely in Singapore, with post-production work undertaken by local company Infinite Frameworks.

As a leading financial centre, Singapore offers valuable funding avenues. There is currently over S$1 billion worth of funds available for media projects and companies, stemming from private capital injected by banks, financial institutions and strategic investors. The government is also a significant source, having seeded around S$190 million worth of co-production deals from 2003 to 2007, via the Media Development Authority.

In December 2007, Technicolor of the US said it was partnering Singapore’s Infocomms Development Authority to set up a Digital Cinema Hub and Network Operations Centre. Both are firsts in Asia. This will offer digital cinema service and related management solution capabilities to the motion picture industry in Singapore and Asia-Pacific. A month before, an Interactive Digital Centre for 3D visualisation at Temasek Polytechnic was launched. It houses state-of-the-art 3D innovative technologies and laboratories for industry project development, training and research.

The presence of top specialty schools like DigiPen, excellent pedagogy within our local tertiary institutes, as well as opportunities to pursue overseas attachments with leading international interactive and digital media companies, will help Singapore establish a world-class talent base. Together with the inflow of global talent, this results in diversity that is highly conducive to the generation of creative ideas.