recognise Singapore's television talents. In that first year, the only awards given out were ten Most Popular Male and Female Artistes awards and the Most Popular Newcomer award; it has been held in December for the first 13 ceremonies before changing its date to April from the 2009 ceremony onwards. By 1990 (the Silver Jubilee of Singapore's Independence), all SBC channels began to air in stereo sound, in time for the closing activities of the jubilee commemorations nationwide. Television Corporation of Singapore (1994–2001) On 1 October 1994, the SBC was privatised, and Singapore International Media group was divided into three separate companies, which include Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS), Radio Corporation of Singapore (RCS) and Singapore Television Twelve (STV12). In September 1995, 24-hour transmission for English and Mandarin programmes were launched for Channels 5 and 8 respectively, while Channel 12 was rebranded to Prime 12 (specialized for Malay, Tamil and Foreign-language programming) and Premiere 12 (specialized for arts, children's and sports programming). On 1 March 1999, Channel NewsAsia was launched as Singapore's first dedicated news channel. Initially regional, but later went international since 2000. In June 1999, TCS underwent a corporate restructuring and became Media Corporation of Singapore (commonly known as MediaCorp). On 30 January 2000, Prime 12 and Premiere 12 were respectively replaced by Suria (which means "sun" or "sunlight" in Malay, specialized for Malay programmes), and Central—whose schedule was divided into three strands known as Kids Central (children's programmes), Vasantham Central (Tamil programmes) and Arts Central. Competition and merger On 12 February 2001, 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. In May 2001, the Singapore government granted new free-to-air licenses to SPH MediaWorks, a subsidiary of publisher Singapore Press Holdings. The company launched two channels, TVWorks (later renamed Channel i) and Channel U, with English and Chinese programming respectively. In late-2004, citing financial issues and a small market for English-language programmes, SPH sold the channels to Mediacorp, resulting in Channel i shutting down at the end of the year, and Channel U continuing as a complement to Channel 8. On 19 October 2008, Central was split into two standalone channels, the Tamil-language Vasantham, and Okto, a new channel containing a mixture of children's and arts programmes. In June 2014, Okto also began