Obituaries are an important way to let loved ones and friends know of someone's passing, but a recent change caused concern for one family looking to publish an obituary in the papers.

Unexpected extra S$107 charge added

A Mothership contributor who wishes to be identified as Jean was in the process of booking a print obituary for her grandma who recently passed away.

It was to be published in The Straits Times via S.Jordan Advertising Pte Ltd, an independent agency accredited by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).

S.Jordan Advertising runs Obituaries.sg, an online obituary platform.

Here's the form she was passed to sign:

The base printing cost of the obituary amounted to S$3,680.59, with "+ S$107" added.

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Jean shares with us that the appointed sales representative assigned to them had informed her family that it was mandatory to purchase the online obituary package, which costs S$107 on top of the normal print obituary.

Apparently, she explained to Mothership, it is a new policy by SPH — any purchase of a print obituary in the Straits Times, must be accompanied by a compulsory purchase of a digital obituary, which will be published on SPH's Obits.sg portal.

Confirmed: effective since August 1, 2018

This was confirmed by Obituaries.sg in response to Mothership's enquiries:

"Yes, with effect from 1 August 2018, SPH has introduced a bundled digital obituary ($107 inclusive of GST) which is compulsory with any death announcement advertisement in the Straits Times.

We also wish to clarify that we are an accredited agency and not part of SPH; and manage our own online obituary portal at www.obituaries.sg. Our online obituaries are provided free of charge as a value added service to clients who publish in the newspapers with us."

Jean tells us she had also got confirmation of this new policy from an SPH representative when she checked independently with them.

Applies to any obituary published in ST

In other words, the mandatory online bundled package is applied to any death announcement published in The Straits Times, no matter how you do so — whether you walk in to the SPH building to place your request for the obituary, or if you go through a third-party agency such as Obituaries.sg to do so.

So, say you bought an obituary through an agency and they give you an online obituary on their own site, you'll still have to buy the digital obituary hosted by SPH's Obits.sg so long as you're printing any death announcement in The Straits Times. 

This only affects announcements via The Straits Times currently, but it is not known if this policy will eventually be extended to include other papers, such as Lianhe Zaobao.

What's an online obituary on Obits.sg like?

To be fair, it does provide some form of convenience.

This site doesn't simply publish an online version of the print obituary,  but an online obituary allows a viewer to share condolences on the page, add the funeral dates to a calendar, and also provides options to share the obituary on social media.

There's even an embedded Google map widget that provides the locations for the wake or funeral (if applicable).

SPH confirms new policy

In a statement to Mothership on Thursday, a spokesperson for SPH confirmed the existence of its new policy regarding digital obituaries.

She explained it was a business decision, which comes with an opt-out option for obituaries costing under S$1,000 before GST is imposed (which means that in the case of our contributor Jean, the opt-out option wasn't available for her since hers cost in excess of S$3,000).

Additionally, she says, if obituaries are placed through third-party agencies like Obituaries.sg, the digital add-on is compulsory no matter how small the obituary published will be.

Here's their statement in full:

Starting from 1 Aug 2018, SPH added a paid digital obituaries service as part of the death announcement package with the Straits Times. The digital obituary service was developed in-house, in order to consider how we might help next-of-kin manage the wake and funeral of their loved one more effectively. The digital service goes beyond a simple replica of the print obituary, based on the insight that technology can help simplify with sharing and management at a very stressful time.

In providing an added service to our customers, we made a business decision to charge a fee for the digital obituary service to cover operational and development costs, and to make it clear and visible to our customers what additional service they were paying for.

To clarify, there is an opt out option. The opt-out for ads under $1,000 (before GST) is available if the death announcement ads are placed directly with our counter, canvassers or via our online site Life Matters.

If the ads are placed through our ad agencies then it is "hard bundled" regardless of price. This was because some of the bigger agencies selling print obit ads on our behalf have their own online obit packages which they sell to the advertiser.

We will continue to enhance the product and welcome any further feedback.

Top image via SPH's Obits.sg website