Once upon a time we used to have 2 presenters for our AM Singapore morning breakfast program run by CNA.
But of late the format changed to 3 presenters. I wonder to myself why so many? Why does it take 3 interviewers to chat with 1 or 2 studio guests when usually only one does the talking while the other 2 either sit idly by or inject a remark/question from time to time? Last week I watched the program again when one of the lady presenters did most of the talking with her 2 guests on craft beer while her other colleagues sat idly by. There was the pleasant Korean lady who did a good job, sweet and intelligent, speaks clearly and presents an Asian image for Singapore. She usually has a male co-host who also projects for us a Singapore/Asian image.
It struck me as rather odd because we do have a national productivity campaign to cut cost and do everything cheaper, better and faster but obviously this does not apply to Media Corp. If so then something is wrong for it is setting a very bad public example to the rest of Singapore trying to achieve productivity gains.
The other grouse which I harbour is: why do all these presenters speak like eating “gantang” (like angmo)? Obviously not being native Singaporeans they speak with rather strange accents rolling their r’s and swallowing their words rendering them incoherent. At first I thought it was my sense of hearing going “kaput” but on checking with a friend I found that she too has a similar grouse. This brings us to the question: why is Media Corp not hiring more of our own native speakers to join the talent pool? Why hire PR”s when locals can do the job just as well?
I understand that AM Singapore is a challenging program because you have to get up pretty early to start the show at 6.30 AM. But shouldn’t the corporation have a Singaporean first policy and only when Singaporeans are found wanting then and only then they can proceed to employ foreign talents to do the job.
But ultimately for a station called ChannelNewsAsia to live up to its Asian image you must have a well balanced mix of both national and international English speakers otherwise we might as well call it ChannelNews Europe or ChannelNews Melbourne. If so then I will stop the grousing.
Patrick Low