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SINGAPORE: Industry players have welcomed the announcement that the government is providing S$1 million seed money to develop Singapore's sports media industry.
Many are also eager to be part of this new initiative, which is jointly run by the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) and the Media Development Authority (MDA).
As sports take on a bigger role in Singapore, the media will also play a critical role in promoting local sports to the world.
Christopher Chia, CEO of MDA, said: "Give it six months or a year... we expect it to grow from there. Within the first few months, we'd love to do something about it and get some of the programming done."
This latest initiative by the government is creating quite a buzz, especially when new media is one area that the scheme is targeting.
Red Sports, which started last year, currently covers the school sports scene, but the website aims to do more.
Leslie Tan, editor of Red Sports, said: "(We could) provide an internship opportunity for interested journalists, photographers, video journalists to come to Red Sports and work on the live platform. (They could) get theoretical training, and more importantly, practical training as well."
Educational institutions like Ngee Ann Polytechnic also produce sports content. In fact, the polytechnic was behind a recent video in support of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games bid.
Some 40 students from the polytechnic's School of Film & Media Studies have just returned from Beijing, where they had a chance to work on the preparations for the Olympics. A few of them even received media training from the professionals in China.
Anita Kuan, Director of School of Film & Media Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, said: "If we had industry support, if we had ministry support, we could certainly do a similar training project involving not just our Ngee Ann students but students across all local educational institutions. It's got this young buzz and it's got the sports-related aspect of it."
Public Relations companies are also set to benefit from the latest move to boost sports media in Singapore.
Fulford Public Relations, which specialises in sports, believes in providing executives more international exposure.
Linda Fulford, Managing Director, Fulford Public Relations, said: "In terms of professionals from our side, we would ideally like to send people overseas to work on major events like the British Open, which is an extremely impressive golf event. If we get an opportunity to send people overseas to see how it is done, they could come back with that level of knowledge."
The SSC and MDA will form a committee comprising industry experts, who will be part of the new Sports Media Business Group.
- CNA/so
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