Will anyone miss the Weekend Mail?Before the smut, the Weekend Mail was printing just about 70,000 copies. Given the Mail's traditionally high return rate of unsold copies, we can safely estimate that some 50,000 people paid RM2 each every weekend to read the rag: 25,00o on Saturday and another 25,000 on Sunday. Not too many. The (murdered) Sunday Mail, which was edited by Aishah Ali until April 23 this year, was doing 50,000 copies on a bad day and the (old) Malay Mail was cruising at over 40,000 copies easily before there was Kalimullah Hassan.
Syed Faisal Albar will miss the Weekend Mail. Those 50K copies mean RM100k in circulation revenue. If the suspension lasts till the end of the year, that would mean more than RM1 million down the drain.
And with The Malay Mail (Mon-Fri) struggling to stay above 20,000 copies a day and with little advertisement coming in, a prolonged suspension of the Weekend Mail could ruin the NSTP chief executive officer's already badly-tainted KPI.
Consolation will come in the form of not having to pay Simon Burgess and M. Zul the fat salaries that they draw should the company decide to roast both raw editors. Syed Faisal could bring back the Sunday Mail. He should also demand a refund for the US$1 million they paid the consultants for this troubled "re-invention" of the Mail.
Miss it? Whats there to miss? I doubt the NST bosses(can't believe I still refer to them as bosses!)will miss it either. Whats a million? Didn't they waste about that much if not more when they closed down the Malay Mail bureaus outside KL? And that was within two years of opening these offices. Staff uprooted to man those posts were yanked back to Balai Berita before they could familiarise themselves with the routes to their new workplaces, from their new but oh so temporary homes.
ReplyDeleteRM3.65 million???Good Gawd, was that how much NST paid those con-sultants? And they kept me at middle-B even after 18 years of writing????
i miss sunday Mail. I miss ME! kih kih
hi rocky. thot i was the only one up reading your blog!its 5 to 4 and i've just come back from pool. whats YOUR excuse?
ReplyDeleteWahts up! I still can't get over the fact that they could screw up big time in such a short time. That's robbing me of my sleep! Y'know on some days they'd print fewer than 30000 copies of Malay Mail. If they print that few, how many do they sell? Someone said 15,000 copies. I refused to believe it. Pool? Thot you were working on a.new mag? Why not just buy over the Mail? Save a life.
ReplyDeleteRM3.65 MILLION!
ReplyDeleteKALI - 10% = RM365,000
SYED FAISAL - 10% = RM365,000
HISHAM - 10% = RM365,000
BAAAANNNYAKKK TUUUUUU!!!!!
PAK CIK KAYO! PAK CIK KAYO! PAK CIK KAYO!
Kos revamp yg lain pulok?
-Harian Metro?
-Metro Ahad?
-Berita Harian?
-Berita Minggu?
-New Starits Times?
-New Sunday Times?
Kalau ditambah2 maunya satu orang dapek RM2 JUTO!
WUIHHH!!!! KA YO, KAYO, KAYO!!!!!!!!
Shareholder NSTP= Miskin, miskin, miskin lo nampok nyo.....!!!!
9/11 ? Macam biasa kulihat ini angka la!!!! Bukan tarikh itu wtc kat Amerika yang kena langgar dek kapal terobang tu ker?
ReplyDeleteKeramat betoi nombor tu yer? Sapa2 yg kaki NOMBOR 4D, Nah aku tambah satu angka lagi (9116). Compem esok dia naik punya!!! Tak Payah pusin2 lagi.
By the way, Rocky, did you know that NSTP is now not just being selective with the news they report, but also the news that it archives?
ReplyDeleteI went to the News Archives to look up the Weekend Mail stories to e-mail to a friend, and those stories are not there! I threw in various combinations of the 'juicy' words I remembered reading, and - nothing. The stories don't exist in the archives!
Wow - it's like way back when in Communist Russia, innit? Re-writing (erasing) history... Has this ever been known to happen? I wonder if there is a hard copy of that fateful Weekend Mail in the Resource Centre? Someone please check.
Scary...
wahts up, rocky? I miss it too.
ReplyDeleteWouldnt miss it at all. How can you miss something when you dont even buy it ?
ReplyDeleteBring back "Waht's Up" and 'Rocky's Bru" in print.
Rocky
ReplyDeleteU shd understand that Kali is no business manager but only spin amateur (a pro should do better spin) and a shady dealmaker.
I know you are very sentimental of NST and its something serious and worthy to fight for, bro. But what can we say? Undeniably, more and more blips and bloopers is expected.
Perhasp, Kali-muttu (since we are hot on the subject grenade blowups of affairs ... Kalimuttu's name seemed to pop up also in conversation on violence) could do an ECM-like no-money-takeover-ma-but-look-like-merger exercise liek takeover of Avenue.
Let me start cracking my corporate cap on. Whats the next corporate deal to turnaround NST ... ahhhh .... the biggest thing happening. NST be given contract to turn new Free Access Zone to sell Malay Mail to Singaporean coming to work ... hahaha not that good ...
Or turn NST private and sell the public vehicle for use as a Construction/Development project in SJER. Read new name as Spin Construction Bhd or perhaps MoNSTer Development Berhad or Pre-Occupied Housing Berhad ....
Or NST takeover some entity in the Kementerian Penerangan thats cashcow. Any cashcow in there available?
Just kidding, Rocky. Rock on!!!
USD1 million!? Duck doggie-style, I am damn angry now! Syed Faisal is a man of his initials! Really! He is an "S" and a "F"!
ReplyDeleteBy year end, I put the losses for his blundering moves at the Malay Mail and Weekend's Mail, including the hiring of an erxpat!, to be at least 20 million ringgit. That much in less than a year! What an S. He should really F off for good after this! At the Malay Mail now, SF is now even more unpopular than Brendan the Pariah of Malaysian Journalism and Ka-Liar-mullah.
a voice! i don't think u shd be giving ideas to that despicable bum about on how and where else he can rape and plunder.
ReplyDeleteif u know him well then u will know that he is capable of doing what u say while u laugh it off as a joke.
but then again, i can't help but laugh, too.
our pm's 3 years has become such a big joke with son, sil, patrick badwi, the stooges at nst, the yes-goons in cabinet.
we are also turning into one big horror movie. look at the crimes. seem like we no longer are content with stabbing someone to death; the hadhari style is to blow one up to bits! urgh. what an explosive way to promote visit malaysia year!
given all these, yes, some people will miss the weekend mail. my advice to these poor people: go to the free porn sites on the net when you crave for the weekend mail.
Things are getting out of hand. Corruption reaching a high level, crime rate increasing and the recent murder of the Mongolian girl capped it all up.
ReplyDeleteWhat's going in this country is really scary.
Life for the ordinary people aint getting better since the last three years.
Am sure if the GE were to be held now, I dont have to tell ya, what the outcome will be.
dear rocky,
ReplyDeletealthough I value and respect blogs, especially in a country such as Malaysia. For the record, I know both Jonathan Kent (in the heat for what he said about the NST editor) and Simon Burgess. The latter was not on a "fat" salary at the Weekend Mail, I can assure you!
so,anonymous,
ReplyDeletewhat is "not fat" (salary) to you?
and rocky bro,
i think it is a "no money back guarantee" deal with the consultants.
you see how amateurish, inexperienced and unprofessional Kalimullah was (and still is).. getting consultants to tell them what Malay Mail should be. Bah! the junior editors snd the MM reporters can do that.
you know, i however, tend to agree with one of your commentors... i am beginning to see really why kalimullah wanted the consultants to do that study.
hishamudin aun has a mentor, hasnt he?
I too have heard that Simon Burgess is an excellent fellow, although i have never met him personally. People at the Mail like him plenty. Decent chappie. Don't know how he was responsible at all for the unfortunate turn of events.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if anyone is laughing (sniggering?) right now, it must be that Lebanese billionaire who was the target of MM more than any other paper.
Yeah, I guess if you went fishing with Burgess or spent a night with him at a motel, talking till morning, anyone could say that he is a nice guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that at the very least, his mother and his friends would say that he's an affable chap.
However, his personality is not in question.
His work is.
Or rather how The Malay Mail and The Weekend Mail has positioned itself over the past few months.
I don't agree that The Weekend Mail should be suspended. But I do agree that some of the stuff that come out have the potential to turn people off.
In the DPM's words, it is "Memalukan."
I am quite sad, really. Especially since I know that my friends and seniors at The Malay Mail can do much, much better if given the proper chance.
It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. With my entire family on it.
i stopped buying (and reading)the Malay Mail just after it was changed to a sleaze paper that was masquerading as a teenybopper paper.
ReplyDeleteI am not old. not at all. in fact i am in the age group the (new) malay mail is targeting.
i am so insulted. the paper seems to think that all i am interested in is new thrill, sensationalism, sex and smut.
even the mast head (i think it is called), is childish.
it is so sad that a newspaper with such a glorious history, immense contribtion, has gone down so badly.
of course, i know now why.
in other companies, those responsible would have to resign or be sacked.
what a shame that the paper has been suspended for being smut, not for defending its belief, its writers.. or for pushing the social or political parameters.
I am sorry. publishing the stories on sex the way the weekend mail did hardly qualifies it as a paper that was done in in the defence of journalism.
i hate the fact that now you can get the Malay Mail in the morning. It's suppose to be an afternoon/evening paper when you're lookin for the latest news. That was the niche of old MM that made me buy MM daily..(last time la..)
ReplyDeletemmgal & others
ReplyDeleteby not "fat" I mean Simon was on a local monthly salary, not my business to say how much, but think middle to upper management for a Malaysian, nowhere near 20K okay? And for the record, neither Simon nor his staff were particularly happy with the WM's direction. To Quote Simon, him and his staff members said often where is the "news" in the newspaper? But that's all water under the bridge isn't? Rest assured this being Malaysia, the guys lower down the order will take the rap, Simon included....
Wow. Nowhere near 20K. For three days a week.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, none of my business. And none of his anymore.
Ya, but middle to upper management for a Malaysian can range anywhere between RM5K to RM15K. Nowhere near - how about RM10K.
ReplyDeleteLike Amir said, Wow. Three days a week. Which means he'd get RM16.6K a month were he to work 5 days a week. Wow.
So, Simon purportedly said, "Where is the news in the newspaper?" Now, I'm wondering, at which point did he realise the Weekend Mail was nonsense? It doesn't really matter actually. If he became unhappy about the kind of work he was putting out, (he was the editor so all work published is under his purview) he should have done something about it. Quit maybe. But he didn't and despite supposedly not believing in what he was doing, he kept doing it. What, he didn't know the smut issue was coming out? Was he powerless to stop it? Hmm, an editor who doesn't have control over the content of his own publication. Tsk Tsk -poor thing. In my magazine, the editor I hired has veto powers over me! That is, insofar as editorial matters are concerned. No, she doesn't get to decide what colour the company vehicles should come in...
Also, there is this story of an MN who was originally offered the position to replace Aishah Ali. After some deliberation, she apparently declined. Clever woman, whatever her reasons may have been for refusing the 'middle to upper management salary' offer. I know she's not a foreigner and the general perception is that only foreigners get big salaries like that. But Mojo Zul is also Malaysian, no?
Thing is, anyone worth his salt in this industry would have heard of the 'penganiayaan' that goes on within NST. Why take the job? So what if you were hand-picked by a Media Prima director. Then again, BECAUSE one is a blue-eyed of a Media Prima director, one might just survive. Consider this scenario.
Some editorial employees take the wrap, get publicly humiliated and then leave. Then they come around to the backdoor of the Finance Department and collect a bounty for their troubles and lay low for a while. A few months later, their names can pop up as head of something or other within the MRCB stable, earning the same 'middle to upper management' salaries.
Eh, election when ah?
Rocky, you said Weekend Mail sold 50,000 copies and that NSTP loses RM100K per weekend.It should be more than that, Bro. We all know cover prices do not even pay the office boy's salary. The RM2 a copy is probably half the production cost, since the Weekend Mail was in simili paper and there's tons of colour pages and no ad support.
ReplyDeleteI think NSTP probably begged the ministry to suspend the paper so it can save some much-needed mullah.
Methinks, Weekend Mail should be renamed Dirty Weekend and be distributed free at major motels and bars.
You guys are all so sentimental about MM and WM. For me those papers were dead when they changed it to Sleave Mail. I love "entertainment" gossip as much as the next man, but what's the use of a paper with no real news, no real comics, old sports news and only sleaze?
ReplyDeleteDON'T PUSH ME ...PUSH WITH ME!
ReplyDeleteDON'T PUSH ME!...PUSH WITH ME!
ReplyDelete