Nielsen: Radio expands its reach

RADIO   NIELSEN   RESEARCH

Malaysia - Radio attracted 2.31 million people aged 10 years and above in an average 15-minute time slot between 7 March to 3 April 2011, the largest radio average audience on record for Peninsular Malaysia, according to the latest findings of Nielsen's Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) Malaysia.

Average weekly time spent listening to the radio has also increased, up from 22 hours 13 minutes per week in July/August 2010 to 24 hours and 54 minutes per week in March/April 2011.

Overall radio listenership remains steady with 15.6 million people (9 in 10 people aged 10 years and above) in Peninsular Malaysia tuning in every week.

Danyal Abdul Malik, managing director of Nielsen Audience Measurement said: "It is now the right time to aspire towards a continuous Radio Audience Measurement service that allows for actual post-buy analysis for advertising campaigns. With the support of Commercial Radio Malaysia (CRM) members, radio listening may soon be reported on a daily basis rather than on a weekly average."

The study is based  on individual quarter-hour diaries completed by a representative sample of 3,000 individuals in Peninsular Malaysia. The most recent survey – Wave 1, 2011 – was conducted from 7 March to 3 April 2011.   

Other insights from the survey include:

Apart from listening in through the home or car radio, one-third of Peninsular Malaysia's radio audience are now tuning in via Astro decoder, while close to one-quarter (23%) are listening to radio on a mobile phone, 10% via internet and 7% on an MP3/MP4 player.

Significantly, the number of radio listeners aged 10 and above in Peninsular Malaysia who have tuned in through the Internet in the past month has doubled to 1.56 million since July/August 2010.

Overall, any radio listening hour per week has increased to 20 hours and 26 minutes at home, followed by 19 hours and 25 minutes a week for those at work, 8 hours and 3 minutes weekly on the road and 5 hours and 6 minutes for other locations.

Meanwhile, the average number of listeners has increased for almost all time slots during a typical day, most notably 9am-11.30am, 5.30pm-7pm and 10pm-11pm.

"Generally, we've seen an increase in average weekly listeners almost throughout the entire day," Danyal said. "This increase is primarily being driven by the rise of listeners aged 35-49 as well as listeners with average monthly household income of more than RM4000."

Bank/Finance-Corporate category emerges as top spender

Total rate-card advertising spending on radio for the period of January to April 2011 increased to RM125 million, up from RM116 million in the same period last year. This represents a share of 4.3% of total ad spending on all media (excluding classifieds). 

The bank/finance-corporate category overtook both fast food centres and mobile line services as the top spender of radio advertising, pumping in almost RM12.4 million in the period of January to April 2011.

It has also emerged as the top growth category with a three-fold increase over the same period last year, driven largely by advertisers such as OCBC, CIMB, BSN and Maybank.

The fast food category has remained in second position, while the previous top category, mobile line services, has moved to third position.

"As an association, CRM has consistently worked as a team in pooling its resources to raise the standard of broadcasting in Malaysia through pioneering programming, marketing, and promotional initiatives," Dato' Borhanuddin Osman, president of Commercial Radio Malaysia (CRM), said.

"Our growth success is measured by our primary stakeholders - the listeners. CRM-driven events like Planet Radio, Boot Camp, Radio Fest, and Radio Day have registered tremendous success largely through the continued support of radio listeners," he added.

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