NKF hasn't died down!

in the spirit of catholic ascetism, i have decided to show you what happens when you simply ignore where the money goes. Sg_Review leads the way yet again, with the (presumably real) email below sent to the various relevant organisations:

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Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:40:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Jeffrey Ho
Subject: Televised Charity Show in July 2005 - Donation to NKF Cancer Fund

To: Feedback Unit - MCYS

cc. MDA/News Corp/BBC/WSJ/NYT/IHT/Sydney Morning Herald/Sg_Review


I refer to the various media reports:

1. Channel News Asia (19 Nov 2005) - MediaCorp produced NKF charity show at discounted rates
LINK - http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/179492/1/.html
2. Today (18 Nov 2005) - "Set the reocrd straight"
LINK - http://www.todayonline.com/articles/85080.asp
3. Electric New Paper (18 Nov 2005) - "Were costs too high?"
LINK - http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,97515-1132329540,00.html?

I am outraged that at the end of the day, out of every dollar I (and many more Singaporeans, many of whom may be out of job or amongst the 250,000 or so "New Poor" earning less than S$1,000 per month) donated to the Cancer Fund during its televised charity show in July 2005, only 25% have so far been channelled to the Fund.

What is more outrageous is the reports that the only 2 media companies in Singapore controlled by the Singapore government, MediaCorp and SPH, received almost $4.5m of the $11 million raised (some 40%), with MediaCorp (the host of the televised charity show) pocketing some $2.5 million and the rest in advertising and promotion cost.

First of all, like many SIngaporeans, I had expected that every dollar of my donation should go to the "true" beneficiaries, the pitiful cancer patients the show highlighted. Had I known that only 25% of every dollar I would donate would go to these patients, I might have acted differently. It is bad enough that the government is not subsidizing sufficiently the medical care and costs (of certain cancer drugs highlighted in a recent Straits Times article by Chua Mui Hoong) of these cancer patients, but to have some of these hard-earned donations from the generous contributions of compassionate (and maybe even "gullible", in the words of Lee Wei Ling) Singaporeans go into its coffers (through its ownership of MediaCorp and SPH) is not acceptable.

Would you be kind enough to answer the following questions uppermost on my mind:

1. MediaCorp said the shows were produced at a discount - not at cost. What was their profit margin?

2. What about the Advertising and Promotion cost (of approx $2 million) "donated" to MediaCorp, SPH and Today newspapers - did they profit from it or were they "charged" at cost?

3. Presumably, MediaCorp and SPH account for these "fees" as revenue in their Income Statement (since MediaCopr admitted as much that the donations from Singaporeans would be treated as a "commercial" deal), so this income will form part of their profit distributable to shareholders and staff. Am I right?

4. So far, only about $7.5 million have been accounted ($4.5 m to MediaCorp/SPH and $3 m to the Cancer Fund). What about the remaining $3.5 million? ($11m was reportedly raised with $2m pledged but not collected yet)

5. In the New Paper report, it said that, "The NKF is expecting another $2 million or so from pledges made but not yet collected". If this amount is not collected, would MediaCorp and SPH still pocket their $4.5 million, resulting in MediaCorp and SPH pocketing some 50% of the donation?

I wonder if other reputable media companies (like the BBC, News Corp, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, etc - to whom I've copied here) would ever do such acts in the name of charity?

Rgds
Jeff Ho
An outraged and "gullible" Singaporean