An insight into the listening habits of Malaysians

From GfK’s most recent Radio Audience Measurement report, it’s quite apparent that video has not in fact killed the radio star — not in Malaysia at least.

In their press statement, GfK stated that findings from the first wave of the Radio Audience Measurement 2017 conducted by GfK in partnership with Commercial Radio Malaysia (CRM) reported that 20.0 million (97.2%) listeners tuned to a radio station each week.

“From the measurement results, radio continues to be the most preferred medium when it comes to being a companion thanks to its role of entertaining and relaxing the listener,” said Selinna Chin, Managing Director of GfK Malaysia.

From the March 26 till May 6 2017, 6,000 unique individuals aged 10 years and above were sampled.

GfK utilised 4,800 paper diaries and 1,200 e-diaries that provided valuable insights into the strength and scope of radio listening across the country.

Two primetime windows stood out with vast numbers from the sampling. Some 14.1 million people aged 10+ listen to breakfast shows aired on weekdays (Monday to Friday, 6AM – 10AM), while drive time shows (Monday to Friday, 4PM – 8PM) reached 14.5 million listeners from the same age group.

The study also showed that the largest listenership from weekday breakfast shows were aged 50 years old and above. In contrast, the largest listener pool for night shows (airing Monday to Friday, 8:00PM – 12:00 midnight) comprised the younger group aged 10 – 19 and 20 – 29 years with the highest reach of 2.1 million respectively.

The next age group is aged 30-39 with 1.7 million listeners.

A whooping 15.4 million listeners still tune in through their cars or vehicles. No real surprise there, but in comparison to a previous survey conducted in 2016, a spike was seen in the number of listeners tuning in via television (up 13.4% with a reach of 7.3 million) and smartphone (up 6.8% garnering a reach of 4.6 million).

President of Commercial Radio Malaysia Datuk Jake Abdullah credits radio’s stronghold on relevancy to the “instant convenience and immediate companionship it provides”.

“Lifestyles change and media technologies become more advanced, yet radio has managed to sustain itself by adapting to newer technologies thereby making it easily accessible to listeners,” said Datuk Jake who is also CEO of Astro Radio.

Astro Radio remains the most popular radio network in Malaysia, with 15.6 million listeners every week accumulatively through its nine brands, accounting for 77.8 percent of Malaysia’s radio-listening audience.


BEST OF GLOBAL DIGITAL MARKETING Conference 2017

For the seventh year running, we are bringing back the famous Best of Global Digital Marketing Conference to KL with a special focus on Content Marketing this year. Unique case-study based learning, as our team monitors over 200 digital marketing award shows across the globe and interviews the winners. Based on this extensive work, we produce in-depth case studies.

Speakers with digital domain expertise:
• Hando Sinisalu, CEO of Best Marketing International
• Kyoko Yonezawa, Creative Technologist and member of Dentsu Lab Tokyo
• Scott Gray, Experience Director, Mirum South Africa

Global Case Studies include:
BANKING & INSURANCE: Compare The Market, Advocards, Allianz, Ally Bank, Barclays….
TECHNOLOGY & STARTUPS: Hubspot, Pipedrive, MoveHub….
AUTOMOTIVE: Volkswagen, Volvo, Nissan, etc FMCG: Ariel, Unilever, Snickers…
RETAIL: McDonald’s, Harvey Nichols, Zalando….
TRAVEL & TOURISM: Qatar Airways, Transavia, Finland Tourism, Sweden Tourism, KLM…

Each best practice case study is presented based on…
Business problem: What is the market situation? Who are the competitors? What is the target audience? What are the main business/marketing challenges? What are the goals?
Solutions: What are the consumer insights? What was the creative strategy? What was the media strategy? What were the results of the campaign?
Lessons: What other marketers from other countries/other business sectors could learn from this case study? What are the main mistakes to avoid?

The Best of Global Digital Marketing Conference has won popularity in more than 30 cities around the world from Singapore, Moscow, Jakarta, Istanbul to Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Prague, Shanghai, Seoul, etc.

Date: 14 August, 2017 (Thursday)

Venue: Sime Darby Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

Time: 8.30am – 5.00pm

Book your seats early! Call Ruby on 03-77262588 or [email protected]


MARKETING Magazine is not responsible for the content of external sites.




Subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates in the marketing and advertising scene