PETALING JAYA: 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, with around 20 million listeners tuning in on an average week.
The most recent survey which was conducted by the research and analytics company over six weeks from Sept 2 to Oct 13 polled 6,000 unique individuals aged 10 years and above.
GfK utilised 4,500 paper diaries and 1,500 e-diaries to collect valuable insights on the strength and scope of radio listening across the country.
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.
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 collectively 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).
To provide additional insights into the radio listening behavior of locals, 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 and routines, since it tends to be consumed alongside other activities, such as while driving (79%), relaxing (73%), working (57%) and while doing the housework (50%).
