The Radio Audience Measurement conducted by GfK in the second half of 2018, in partnership with Commercial Radio Malaysia (CRM), revealed that radio listenership in Peninsular Malaysia remains high – around 20 million listeners tuning in on an average week.
The most recent survey which was conducted over six weeks from September 2 to October 13 polled 6,000 unique individuals aged 10 years and above.
Results revealed that weekday breakfast shows (Monday to Friday, 6AM to 10AM) and drive time shows (Monday to Friday, 4PM to 8PM) continue to garner the highest listenership, accounting for 13.8 million and 12.9 million listeners respectively. Breakfast shows reported a rise in weekly reach from 13.6 million in the previous survey conducted first half of the year to 13.8 million listeners in the recent wave.
The Young is Listening
GfK findings also showed that radio is reaching more of the younger listeners, with those from the 20-29 age group increasing by 30,000 to hit 4.46 million in weekly reach, attributed largely to the popularity of breakfast and evening shows. In particular, over 3.03 million, some 104,000 more from the 20-29 age group tuned in weekly to breakfast shows, while evening shows also attracted around 91,000 more young listeners in the 10-29 age group to total 4.12 million listeners.
Among all the different languages, Bahasa Malaysia stations are most popular with radio audiences, tuned in by over 3 in 5 Malaysians. These stations have a weekly reach of 62.7% (13.1 million listeners). They are trailed by the Chinese stations with 20.7% (4.3 million listeners), followed by English stations at 20.6% (4.3 million listeners) and Tamil stations at 6.8% (1.4 million listeners).
Radio Insights in Peninsular Malaysia
GfK also conducted the Radio Insights study—a yearly survey of 1,000 listeners aged 15 to 49 years. According to the 2018 Radio Insights report, the top three reasons listeners tune in to radio are to hear songs that they know and enjoy (86%), to discover new songs (54%) and to get updated on current news (47%).
The insights also showed that radio continues to be a dominant and influential media on people’s daily lives, as it is consumed alongside other activities, such as while driving (79%), relaxing (73%), working (57%) and while doing the housework (50%).
Meanwhile, it remains the most effective and reliable media channel for advertisers. 3 in 5 respondents agreed it is the most authentic and trustworthy amongst all media, including TV, newspaper and the internet. It also tends to have the most impact on listeners on a personal level. While two in three (66%) agreed that listening to radio helps them to get into a better mood, half of all respondents claimed that radio provides a feeling of companionship.
Despite the prevalence of other forms of social media, radio has also demonstrated to have the highest social media engagement, according to findings from the 2018 Radio Insights. Two-thirds (67%) of respondents claimed that they have read or interacted with a radio station’s/show’s/presenter’s social media pages in the past month, as compared to other media channels such as TV (53%), newspaper (37%) and magazine (34%).
Based on these results, it is clearly evident that radio remains the popular media for Malaysians.
