Mediacorp - Ident (2015)

Copyright (c) 2015 Mediacorp Pte. Ltd.

Mediacorp is a Singaporean state-owned media conglomerate, and it operates a suite of TV channels, radio stations and multiple digital platforms in the country. It was Mediacorp itself that had pioneered Singapore’s broadcasting industry, having established radio broadcasts in 1936 (as the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation), which was at the time when Singapore was a part of the Straits Settlements.

TV broadcasts were introduced in Singapore upon the launch of Television Singapura on 15 February 1963, in which the station's first telecasts were watched by 300 guests at the Victoria Memorial Hall; members of the public in 52 community centres, Victoria Theatre and Princess Elizabeth Walk, as well as over 2,000 families who had TV sets in their households.

Following the separation of Singapore from the Malaysian federation in 1965, all of the Malaysian television and radio operations in Singapore were fused to become Radio Television Singapore (RTS). This led to the expansions of the network, including a move to a new $3.6-million TV center in Caldecott Hill in 1966, as well as the installation of a satellite earth station in 1971 to facilitate a syndicated and international programming broadcast.

Singapore became one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to introduce colour television broadcasts in 1974; public response was initially lukewarm to the colour transmissions, but was soon changed after the first live colour telecasts of the 1974 FIFA World Cup final between West Germany and the Netherlands.

As time passes, RTS had been evolving many times throughout the years. The Singapore Broadcasting Act passed in 1979 paved the way for the corporatisation of TV in Singapore, with the government stating that it would “retain control over the policy of the corporation in the public interest” to ensure that air time for minorities would not be reduced. Discussions on the corporatisation of RTS had started in 1969, and given impetus after cuts in the government budget for television led to constraints over facilities and manpower in the mid-1970s.

The corporatisation led to several changes in name and organizational structure, so in 1980, RTS became the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), and was given more autonomy and flexibility.

A decade later in 1994, SBC was privatized and reorganized into three entities: Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS), Radio Corporation of Singapore and Singapore Television Twelve (STV12), all under the Singapore International Media (SIM) group of companies. SIM became a wholly-owned company of the government’s investment holding company Temasek Holdings - this move came in anticipation of competition from cable television.

In June 1999, SIM became the Media Corporation of Singapore, or MediaCorp - with no changes made to its structure and operations, but it was in February 2001 when the Television Corporation of Singapore, Radio Corporation of Singapore and Singapore Television Twelve were renamed to Mediacorp TV, Mediacorp Radio, Mediacorp TV12 respectively as part of a new management plan following their dissolution. MediaCorp's monopoly on free-to-air TV was broken in May that same year, when the Singapore government granted new free-to-air licenses to SPH MediaWorks, a subsidiary of publisher Singapore Press Holdings.

It was on 8 December 2015 that Mediacorp had officially opened and transferred to its new headquarters at one-north's Mediapolis development. Coinciding this move, Mediacorp also unveiled a new logo, which was designed to reflect the network's "vibrancy" and "multiplicity", acting as an "a window to the world and a reflection of life".