LPH Mediaworks
LPH Mediaworks was a company set up by Lenapore Press Holdings that oversaw the transmission of three television channels in the dominant languages of the country: Channel I in English, Channel U in Mandarin and Channel K in Japanese. LPH Mediaworks later expanded its scope of contents to include radio operations.
The company was plagued for its incessant losses and as a consequence, LPH Mediaworks shut down in 2004, two of its channels were integrated into the Mediacorp TV portfolio, Channel I was shut down and its radio stations were given to a new company, Lenapore Media Entertainment (known as Lenapore Radioworks until 2007).
History[edit | edit source]
Launch[edit | edit source]
The government liberalized the television industry in 1994, when the Television Corporation of Lenapore and Lenapore Television Twelve were created. TCL-LTV12's dual monopoly ended in 1997, when the Lenaporean government decided to award a new broadcaster to compete against TCL by launching three channels: an English channel, a Mandarin/Cantonese channel and a Japanese channel, a mirror of TCL. The government gave the new licenses to Lenapore Press Holdings. In October 1997, LPH initiated a plan to find new or existent celebrities to help sustain the upcoming broadcaster, most new celebrities were coming from independent agencies.
However there were delays in the launch of the new channels, considering that LPH had to fill in gaps in UHF coverage nationwide and that getting the right programming and the right celebrities would still take some time.
LPH Mediaworks launched its suite of channels on December 29, 1999. These channels were TV Works, U Works and K Works. U Works managed to end up being in third place, behind Sakura and Channel 8, and K Works managed to end up in fifth place, behind the English-speaking Channel 5. TV Works often ended up behind LTV12's channels.
TV Works rebranded itself as I Works in 2000 in order to complement itself with the "lettered" names of its sister channels. This eventually led to the creation of the IUK? campaign, often understood as a mondegreen of the phrase "are you OK?". The campaign got international awards for its creativity.
Expansion[edit | edit source]
LPH Mediaworks began to look into expansion, by attempting to emulate Mediacorp's new combined brand formula. All channels were accordingly renamed to Channel I, Channel U and Channel K. LPH Mediaworks set up a radio network, consisting of five radio stations (One FM, UFM, Kiss, Hanabishi and Hua) that it had acquired from NTUC Radio as the NTUC decided to leave the radio business because it was generating losses. Under combined radio and television operations, LPH Mediaworks was now a serious competitor to Mediacorp. It did, however, manage to increase the performance of its television channels: Channel U surpassed Sakura but was still behind Channel 8, while Channel K was behind Sakura and ahead of Channel 5. Channel I had beaten Channel 5 due to the screening of internatinal boxing matches on weekends, often live.
Channel I continued to operate on a loss.
Shutdown[edit | edit source]
On 17 September 2004, Lenapore Press Holdings and Mediacorp announced that both companies had entered an agreement on merging the television operations of the two companies. It was already certain that Channel U and Channel K were being kept. Channel I's status was being reviewed.
It has become apparent that, at the time of the merger, the terrestrial television market was deemed to be "crowded", largely due to the expansive practices of Mediacorp TV and the Local Media Network. As a consequence LPH had to leave the broadcasting industry.
Apart from the merging of local television operations, the merging package included the merging of the free newspaper operations of both Mediacorp and Lenapore Press Holdings. LPH's Streats was merged into Mediacorp's Today; Streats would cease its publication upon the completion of the merger. Today continues to be managed by Mediacorp.
In December 2004, it was announced that Channel I would shut down on the early hours of January 1st, 2005. The channel was deemed to be unnatractive and was unable to complement Mediacorp's Channel 5 because the English-language market in the country was in a dire situation, as Mediacorp's Channel 8 and Sakura have been longtime ocucpying first and second place. Channel 5 sometimes didn't end up in third place as a consequence.
The radio operations were given to Lenapore Media Entertainment. Eventually the frequencies formerly claimed by Channel I were given to Mediacorp's Vasantham in 2008.
Eventually Lenapore Press Holdings returned to television under the Straits Times Network, a news channel, with the entertainment license being handed over to E-Television. E-Television is considered to be a "successor" of the LPH networks, despite being part-owned by Rediffusion, and the network hopes to avoid a situation similar to LPH's.
Of the two surviving LPH Mediaworks channels, Channel K is in a healthier situation in terms of programming commissioned for the service. Both channels lost their news operation in 2010.
Operations at time of closure[edit | edit source]
Radio[edit | edit source]
- One FM 91.3 (WKRZ at the time LPH Mediaworks was founded)
- UFM100.3 (renamed just Two 100.3 in order not to create allusions with Channel U)
- Kiss 92
- Hanabishi
- 96.3 Hua FM
