In the announcement that was published on the third page of its newspaper last Friday, the 52 years old company said that the new price would help it “maintain business sustainability,”. The company also said that the new cover price would help support the livelihood of its staff alongside vendors, newsstands, and delivery men. Alongside the price increase, The Star promised that readers would also see some increase in the number of pages within the newspaper. The company already planned “exclusive pullouts” on a daily basis that would feature various topics including outdoor environment, parenting, gardening, home improvement, new technologies, and many more. Meanwhile, the price hike has also affected the newspaper’s subscription plan which now starts at RM252 for its 3-month plan while the 1-year plan goes for RM927. As a comparison, the 3-month plan was previously priced at RM168 and the 1-year option can be obtained for RM618 according to a web archive dated 29 March 2023. Based on the same archive, it seemed that The Star has also removed the 6-month and 2-year subscription plans from the market. However, there will be no changes to The Star ePaper subscription plan which currently starts at RM18 for the 1-month plan although we noticed that the 6-month and 2-year options have since been removed as well.
At the same time, the company has also retained the pricing for its Digital Bundle plan that provides 1-year access to the ePaper as well as all of the content within The Star’s website and mobile app for RM208. There are no changes to the stand-alone Digital Access Premium Plan too which is currently priced at RM13.90 per month or RM148 per year. Given the rather hefty 50% price increase, some parties already begin to question the move even though it is still too early to know the level of impact that the price hike will have on the newspaper’s circulation. Then again, the signs might already be up in the air though as the combined circulation for The Star’s daily print and ePaper is already on the downtrend over the years – from 332,542 copies as noted in the Star Media Group’s 2017 annual report (pdf) to 216,062 copies just two years later (pdf).
