MALAYSIA--The current political turmoil may have thrown the country into disarray, but it is proving to be good news for Malaysian news portals.
Following the general election in March this year, which saw the opposition sweep into power across half of Malaysia's states, the country has been wobbling from one political controversy to another.
Daily news headlines scream of treachery, political intrigues, murder accusations, sodomy charges and corruption.
But while the shaky political situation may have rattled foreign investors and the stock market, as well turned Malaysia into an international joke, it is proving to be sweet music to the country's independent online news media.
Premesh Chandran, Malaysiakini CEO
Malaysians eager to seek out the truth and read sensational reports, have been flocking to a host of local news Web sites and political blogs.
Independent news site Malaysiakini.com, broke new ground early July when it dethroned the country's leading newspaper, The Star, as Malaysia's No. 1 news site, according to Alexa.com. The traffic ranking service also placed Malaysiakini No. 15 among the nation's most popular sites, where The Star Online came in at No. 16 and the Utusan Group's online news site ranked in at No. 18.
By late July, Malaysiakini chalked up another accolade when it became the most popular Malaysian Web site, toppling Maybank's e-commerce site maybank2u.com.my, on the Alexa.com Malaysia ranking. The news portal was ranked No. 13 in the overall list, which is led by Yahoo, Google and Friendster.
Profiting from alternative views
Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran said one of the goals, when the site was launched in 1999, was to become the nation's leading news site. The portal's charge to the top was "a remarkable achievement", particularly when the site relies mainly on reader subscription, Premesh told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.
He said the success of Malaysiakini was based on its commitment to provide independent, balanced news and analyses on current affairs. In contrast, its pro-government mainstream media rivals such as The Star, "exercise a greater degree of self-censorship", he added.
Industry observers say the increasing popularity of political blogs and news sites such as Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today, is testament to Malaysians' growing political awareness and dissatisfaction with mainstream newspapers and TV stations, which are generally seen as the ruling government's mouthpieces.
Premesh acknowledged that the country's political upheavals contributed to a surge in visitors to the Malaysiakini site. In July last year, the news portal averaged just 100,000 unique visitors monthly. Since March 2008, Malaysiakini has been clocking over 1 million unique visitors per month, generating an average of 20 million pageviews each month.
Following the upsurge in scandalous political news over the past month, the Web site has hit a new record. "In the last 30 days, we have had 36 million pageviews, the highest ever," said Premesh, who co-founded Malaysiakini together with current chief editor Steven Gan.
Apart from the increase in subscribers, the site is also beginning to attract big corporate advertisers that had previously ignored the news portal.
In the first half of 2008, advertising revenue climbed eight-fold compared to advertising dollars the site generated the whole of last year, Premesh revealed. "Since the election, major corporations like CIMB Bank, AirAsia, Acer, DiGi.com and Tune Money, have started advertising on our Web site," he said.
New online players are also benefiting from the surge in Malaysians looking to the Internet for their daily dose of political news. One of the newest entrants is The Malaysian Insider, a Web site covering politics, business, lifestyle, sports and entertainment.
The news portal's CEO Sreedhar Subramaniam said the country's political developments have been positive for the Web site.
"The Malaysian Insider is not a political news portal, but due to much interest in politics from the public within and outside the country, we have had tremendous interest in our political news content," Sreedhar said in an e-mail interview.
"Our pageviews are growing at a rate that we did not expect--we are approaching 3 million page views a month. We expect this to be even higher when we officially launch the news portal by September and implement our marketing campaign," he said. "So far, the Web site had been promoted purely by word of mouth."
Malaysiakini's Premesh said the site is not threatened by the proliferation of new independent news sites, adding that "there's sufficient space for all us to operate".
"Having just a few players is not very good, we need economies of scale," he said. "We need advertisers to evaluate the opportunities online."
For this to happen, there needs to be a growing ecosystem of online news providers, Web sites and blog sites, he added.
Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.
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