Since the 1800s, the radio, defined as an activity or industry of broadcasting sound programmes to the public, has been a device that delivers static, one-way entertainment and news.
However, the introduction of the Internet followed by the steep growth rate of technology over the past decade or so has changed the overall consumer landscape and pushed traditional broadcasting and publication mass communication mediums – including the radio – to evolve to meet a more demanding and tech-wise crowd.
Global survey company Nielson in a recent report said that throughout Asia Pacific, media consumption habits are changing at a rate not seen for many years.
“Brand experience sharing through social media, online product reviews and opportunities to buy online are changing the game. Similarly, consumers’ exposure to marketing messages delivered via new and emerging media such as the Internet, rich media (for example, online video), and smartphones is resulting in an expanded number of touch-points where brands can engage,” it said.
Compared to half a decade ago, information streamed to consumers within a two to three year time frame can still be deemed relevant.
However, in this day and age, information reaches the public within seconds thanks to technology and with this rapid distribution of information, what is relevant in today can be obsolete within a year or two.
“These changes present endless opportunities for marketers, the key is staying one step ahead and anticipating where the market will move to next,” Nielsen said.
Here in Malaysia, from being just music and entertainment by deejays aired over various radio frequencies, Malaysia’s radio business is constantly evolving by leaps and bounds to catch up with Malaysia’s constantly changing lifestyles.
While the attraction towards radio entertainment has dwindled over the years, Astro Radio Sdn Bhd (Astro Radio), the radio broadcasting arm of Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd (Astro Malaysia) have proven against the odds by garnering a lion’s share of listenership across Malaysia.
This, it said, was thanks to its move to localise contents, implement more aggressive marketing strategies and reach the masses by bridging its traditional media and digital platform.
In its recent financial year 2014 (FY14) result announcement, Astro reported a double digit growth of 15 per cent in total radio advertising revenue (adex) at RM582 million, from RM504 million a year earlier, largely contributed by its increasing penetration of Malaysian households, strong TV viewership share and radio listenership.
It noted that the share of TV viewership increased to 47 per cent, up from 43 per cent in FY13, whilst Astro’s radio listenership of 12.2 million is reflective of its leading position as a radio station in the Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil languages, according to Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement survey results.
Some of the key elements Astro Radio has hone in on to ensure successful growth in listenership is improvement in its engagement with its listeners by providing relevant information.
It has also identified that to grow its listenership, it has to provide a platform for listeners to reach them and in this case, engage with them via various digital mediums. Astro Radio chief executive officer Dr Jake Abdullah told BizHive Weekly during a recent interview in Kuching that the radio is no longer just a passive ‘box’.
“The radio now is all about about being seen, touched, and communicated with. Now, we have to be visible to our to engage 360 degrees with our listeners,” he said.
With the rapid changes in technology, Astro Radio also highlighted that it is important to continuously evolve to be on par with the customers needs.
Chief commercial officer TH Chong added, “If we continue to do today, what we did five years ago, we’ll be obsolete very quickly. We have to evolve ourselves.”
BizHive Weekly sat with the management team of Astro Radio and its digital media team to delve further into efforts the national radio operator are currently doing to boost its listenership and converge its traditional radio media with the digital platform.
Astro Radio: Bridging platforms
Beaming across East Malaysia
The need to get relevant information based on location has become more important especially at the speed information is traveling these days. Meeting this demand is also key to building and sustaining customer loyalty for any type of business including the radio business.
For Astro Radio, the move to expand its footprint into Sabah and Sarawak has been viewed as an effort that successfully “bridged the gap” between East and West Malaysia.
In East Malaysia, the demand by listeners who want closer-to-home contents have grown for the past few years and many have felt like they were being left out as the programmes and events broadcast on Astro Radio’s stations were relevant only to those living across the South China Sea, in Peninsular Malaysia.
The interest of national and local businesses and industries on East Malaysia’s market has also grown over the years especially with the rapid developments going on in the two states.
Aware of this and committed to serve one of its main key growth markets, the radio operator had done extensive research on the possibility of placing radio transmitters as well as a base in capital cities of Sabah and Sarawak to improve its engagement with the listeners in the two states.
In October 2010, Astro Radio took a leap of faith and officially begun transmitting localised contents for its three of its main radio stations (hitz.fm, MY fm and ERA fm) from Kuching and Kota Kinabalu to across East Malaysia.
This was also the first time; a national broadcasting radio operator has expanded its footprint to East Malaysia to provide more localised radio contents to meet the demand of local listeners.
“It was a tough decision because we knew that for the first few years, financially, it’s not going to make sense to us, but as a national radio, we endeavoured,” chief executive officer of Astro Radio, Dr Jake Abdullah told BizHive Weekly.
“Before we made this decision, we had done a lot of research and these researches indicated that they (East Malaysians) want a similar flavour as national radio.
“What we found out is that listeners here wanted the same flavour but with splices or just a dash here and there of local flavours such as traffic, news, contests, and others,” he added.
Astro Radio also revealed that to sustain the business in East Malaysia, the radio operator had undergone surveys and continued its research of the market in Sabah and Sarawak to determine trends and listenership.
Its chief commercial officer TH Chong said, “We are the first company that does formalised survey to ascertain listenership because before we came into the market, the radio industry’s statistics were unclear.
“Now, it’s into our second year of survey that we’ve engaged Nielsen, the world’s biggest survey company, to conduct a survey in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, to see how we’ve grown in East Malaysia and to see the trend.”
Overall, total radio reach in both Kota Kinabalu and Kuching have remained high at 98.6 per cent penetration of the 794,500 population aged 10 years and above.
Total Astro Radio penetration in both cities have reached 46.4 per cent or 559,200 listenership, with hitz.fm at 258,700, ERA fm at 241,000, and MY fm at 137,700. The radio operator had also recorded an overall seven per cent growth in listenership for both Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.
In addition, Astro Radio dominates almost half of market share of listenership in both capital cities of Sarawak and Sabah with 45.2 per cent listenership share in Kuching and 48.8 per cent listenership in Kota Kinabalu. Astro Radio’s stations also churned out 184,300 listeners in Kota Kinabalu and 328,700 listeners in Kuching weekly.
The radio operator had also recently expanded its transmitters in Miri and Sandakan to improve its reach across East Malaysia.
On its progression in East Malaysia, Jake noted that to showcase the radio operator’s commitment to grow in the region; it had changed the name of its hitz.fm station from hitz Kuching/hitz KK, to hitz Sarawak/hitz Sabah.
The move to expand in East Malaysia is also to fulfil its parent company’s (Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd) objective of growing and harnessing local talents.
Jake said, over the last three or so years, Astro Radio’s team in Sabah and Sarawak have successfully reached a level which is almost on par with that in Peninsular Malaysia.
“A key element that drives our business is our ability to grow talent. People are our main drivers and we have the ability to develop the industry by driving talent growth,” he added.
“The learning process for East Malaysians is very steep because we (Peninsular Malaysia) had a 16 year head-start before East Malaysia could catch up.
“Now, for our radio station, the standard here is almost the same as Peninsular Malaysia and over 90 per cent of the work force here are locals. Initially, it was half because it is a new field in Sabah and Sarawak,” Jake highlighted.
He added to accommodate this rapid growth in local talent, Astro Radio is looking to expand its local content programmes to 12 hours, from six hours and an initial three hours, when the radio operator first stepped foot here. Overall, the chief of the leading national radio operator outlined that Sarawak and Sabah are key market growths to the company.
“We are not treating the business here as a ‘step-child’ project anymore. We know there is potential in these states and we’re serious about our growth here,” he said.
Chong concurred and added, “East Malaysia is one of the three key growth business pillars for us.”
Connecting the airwaves and the digital platform
As development in technology and improvements in Internet and broadband coverage continue its rampant forward trajectory, it is vital for industry and business players to evolve and adapt or risk falling behind.
Sticking to ‘the old ways’ does not work anymore in this ‘digitally connected’ world, particularly for industries that reaches directly with the general public such as the media industry, or in this case, the radio business.
In fact, the growth of listenership for digital radio or Internet radio have jumped 90 per cent for Android users from year 2012 to 2013, while other devices such as website/online, iPhone, and Blackberry have grown by an average 17 per cent.
“Digital is the new frontier. In these day and age, information does not just come from TV or radio anymore,” said Astro Radio head of digital media Jayaram Gopinath Nagaraj, or more affectionately known as Junior.
Digital media’s role in Malaysia is growing increasingly important especially with the immense power of the Internet which has the potential to reach out to anyone in the world that has online access.
Entertainment is also no longer one way with new media becoming more prevalent today, as many have started relying on social websites, interactive blogs and others which enable exchange of information in multiple ways on a real-time basis.
At Astro Radio, its chief highlighted, “These days, the disruption for us is not a radio station but the smartphones. Instead of listening to our radios, our listeners are busy checking their phones, and their social networks.”
Nielsen in a report also noted that increasing ownership of Internet-enabled devices has also resulted in simultaneous media consumption or ‘media multi-tasking’.
“In Southeast Asia, accessing the Internet whilst watching television is the most common media multi-tasking activity, occurring at least several times per week,” it added.
Concurring this view, Junior pointed out the media industry is currently faced by what they call ‘the multi-screen’ generation whereby, these days, most consumers are constantly occupied by not one smartphone, but multiple smart devices or technology.
However, aware of the changes in the consumer landscape, Jake highlighted that for the past few years, Astro Radio has made aggressive efforts to increase its reach to listeners via popular social media as well as apps that are available on mobile or smart devices.
“The most attractive characteristic thing about radio is it’s ability to modify its DNA when the situation arises.
“A lot of people think that radio is an old medium, with digital broadcasting coming in. But, we are able to go chameleon on this and embrace every feature. We’ve moved from being just a radio station to a content aggregator, we aggregate contents across all channels.
“Our convergence with the digital platform is growing. From being just a radio station, we’re using our digital mediums. The radio is no longer just a ‘box’ and it is no longer static, as listeners can now listen to what they want, in real time,” he commented.
With that, Astro Radio’s foray into the digital world involved the development of mobile application and Internet radio or podcasting.
All in, Astro Radio reported that its total reach via online and apps is at 3.191 million monthly with over one million that listeners via mobile.
The radio operator’s mobile applications (apps) have reached over 3.7 million download acrss iOS, Android, and Blackberry, with over one million downloads recorded in 2013.
Locally, Sarawak’s monthly total digital listenership is at 34,301, while in Sabah, 35,757.
Astro Radio is also the first radio broadcast company in Malaysia to create radio streaming applications for the iPhone and it had won ‘Best Mobile Application’ at Innovation Malaysia awards 2009.
Junior, who developed Astro Radio’s first mobile application, said that when the team first started developing the mobile app, the iPhone officially wasn’t sold yet in Malaysia.
“This is something we saw, from back then, what is going to be the new way for listeners to tune in to our radio station.
“At that point, we were the second company in the world and the first company in Southeast Asia, to introduce a technology and application that can stream high-quality audio.
“We quickly became one of the biggest downloaded app in the Malaysia, because we were one of the first few (companies that offers entertainment apps),” he said.
More consumers than ever are enjoying digital radio wherever they are, on a growing number of devices.
An interesting fact Junior noted is that while there are a total 12 million listeners for Astro Radio, a quarter of its listeners tune in online.
He said based on research, the public tune in to the physical radio station while commuting back or forth from work while the remainder of the day, they usually tune in online through their mobile devices or through the web.
Astro Radio’s latest innovation is the Astro Go Listen Mobile App which enables users to listen to all Astro Radio stations and it also provides the option to recommend music that fits mood, activity or genre.
Astro Radio had also revamped all its websites in December 2012 and hitz.fm was the first Malaysian radio station to receive an official honoree in the 17th Annual Webby Awards.
It had also rebuilt its entire podcast infrastructure and now, Astro Radio sees over 1.5 million podcast downloads monthly and over one million monthly unique visitors on its websites and seven million page views.
Astro Radio content have been made available on its website, Facebook, Youtube, blogs and more to boost the interactivity between the radio operator and the Internet users.
Junior also pointed out that the move to specific social sites and contents shared online were based on extensive research on listeners’ behaviour.
The availability of radio on mobile devices such as smart phones with Internet connectivity or online gives advertisers access to a new media audience, as well as the traditional audience at home, at work or in cars, said Astro Radio.
While the radio operator continues to grow and develop its digital platform to meet the digital revolution happening throughout the world, they stressed that intention is not to fully digitalise the radio station.
Chong said, “For radio operators like us, what we’re trying to do is not make a digital version of the radio.
“We’re integrating the two (digital and radio) and build a lot of other smaller elements around it.”
He noted that traditional media such as the radio, has to find a balance between digital and the traditional method of relaying information because while yes, the development of technology is rampant in urban areas and there is a need to embrace advanced technology or the digital lifestyle, there’s is still challenges to going full-digital, and this mainly involves the lack or absence of overall advertising revenue.
Meanwhile, on the digital adaptation growth in Sarawak and Sabah, Jake viewed that the growth rate between East Malaysia and Peninsular Malaysia is almost on an equal level.
He noted that the only reason East Malaysians are perceived as ‘lagging behind’ is due to Peninsular Malaysia’s 16-year head start. However, the CEO pointed out that East Malaysians are quick to learn and catch up to its counterpart in the west.
He also positively viewed the head-start in Peninsular Malaysia as East Malaysians aren’t bogged by unnecessary pressure. Jake commented, “East Malaysians are more relaxed, so there are a lot of room to easily grasp the digital lifestyle.
“So, I don’t think that East Malaysians are coming up to that level, I think they are already up to that level where Peninsular Malaysians are at now.”
Overall, he commended East Malaysia’s growth and said that there has been a positive shift in Sabah and Sarawak towards the radio business.
History of Astro Radio
Astro Radio have come a long way since it first begun beaming its broadcasts across Malaysia almost two decades ago. Formerly known as Airtime Management & Programming Sdn Bhd or AMP Radio Networks, the radio operator is owned by Astro Malaysia Holdings Sdn Bhd (Astro Malaysia).
According to its 2013 Annual Report, through the launch of MEASAT-1 via MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems Sdn Bhd (a wholly-owned subsidiary) in 1996, Astro Malaysia commenced digital direct-to-home (DTH) satellite pay-TV services with 22 TV and five terrestrial FM networks, namely hitz, MIX fm, Light & Easy, Talk Radio, and Classic Rock.
It was also the first broadcaster in Malaysia to introduce format radio programming in the country’s commercial radio market.
Over the forthcoming years, demand grew for radio content in Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese, as radio listeners who were exposed to Astro Radio’s English brands wanted the same formats but in other major local languages.
This compelled Astro Radio to make major changes in its radio station lineup by swapping two of its English FM brands, namely Classic Rock and TalkRadio, for Era FM (Bahasa Malaysia) and MY FM (Chinese) respectively.
Since then, Astro Radio had gradually expanded its radio stations from its initial stable of five FM stations. In 2004 and 2005, it launched XFM (then Xfresh FM), a Malaysian-music only brand aimed at young Malaysians, as well as acquried Sinar FM and THR.FM, bringing the total number of FM stations to eight.
Astro Radio noted that due to the unique licensing conditions of THR.FM, the brand is split into two, with the West Coast of Peninsula Malaysia receiving 18 hours of Tamil broadcast a day via THR Raaga, while the tri-state East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia broadcast is in Bahasa Malaysia 24 hours a day via THR Gegar, specialising in all things East Coast.
It added, in 2012, Melody FM was launched and subsequently, XFM transitioned to a 100 per cent online radio station.
Now into its 18th year of operation, Astro Radio has achieved many milestones as Malaysia’s pioneer for format radio. It is now the sole provider of 20 satellite radio services, which include the nine FM services that are also available to all Astro subscribers in Malaysia.
The radio operator is also one of the first few in Southeast Asian to utilise local insertion units (LIU) for local or regional advertisers and dynamic radio data system (RDS) as commercial tools.
In 2010, as a key part to it growth strategy, Astro Radio begun broadcasting live from Kuching and Kota Kinabalu, to answer calls for regionalisation in the two states.
This also fulfils its parent company’s commitment to provide local and localised content to its customers.
Astro said the expansion has allowed Astro Radio to capture an extensive coverage as it reaches a largely untapped market across all demographic segments. Spurred by positive feedbacks from East Malaysia, the radio operator had extended its transmission in East Malaysia via Miri and Sandakan.
The interest in Astro Radio has also grown beyond its home turf in Malaysia, with China, India and Indonesia showing interest in the radio stations operated by the radio operator.
Astro Radio, known also for its on-the-ground engagement with listeners and the public, first begun its ‘cruisers’ team with hitz.fm leading the way in 1997, followed by MY FM in 2001, and subsequently, the rest of its major radio stations.
Over the years, the radio operator has conducted various on-the-ground events and concerts via its leading radio stations such as hitz.fm, Era FM and MY FM
Astro Radio also continues to develop its complimentary platforms to extend the value of radio including on-air, on-ground, on-line and mobile technologies.