Dawn of the New Decade

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ADOI ONLINE EDITION
Government Radio Stations rise to the challenge of the competitive media environment
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RTM's Director General, Datuk Ibrahim Yahaya, paints a bright future for government radio stations.

Though we cannot forget the British for introducing radio technology in Malaya, it was the Malaysian government that nurtured and grew radio to be a communication tool for the people.  Though many had said, during the advent of television, that TV will kill the livelihood of radio, but as we can see today, that assumption does not hold true. Radio in fact in the this year’s downturn has seen some encouraging growth as many advertisers have moved their money from other mediums to radio.

Datuk Ibrahim Yahaya, Director General of Radio Television Malaysia Department of Broadcasting says, “Radio will always be the number one medium because it is nearest to us. It can be switched on at anytime, be it in the office, while at home, in the car and in the 21st century, even on your mobile phone. At RTM we believe that radio is an important tool for the government to disseminate information to the public, such as the currently running, 1 Malaysia programme.” He also added, “We must use radio not only to disseminate information but to get response from the people.”

As RTM moves forward, their future plans for radio are not less than impressive. The government radio stations have not only started planning for the dawn of digital radio but its implementation is also underway. “There are two areas when talking about digital radio; the station and the transmission. So far at RTM, we have developed our digital radio infrastructure since 1995, with digital radio studios set up throughout the country.”

He added, “The next step will be the transmission phase, which is divided into two categories, DRM (digital radio mondiale) and DAB + (digital audio broadcast plus). For DRM, basically it is a secondary transmission, with DAB+ being the primary transmission, thus those who want to replace FM should use DAB+.”

For short wave the use of DRM is best. With DRM, one can use analog and digital but DAB+ can only be used for digital transmissions. “In most of our radio stations, we use FM except in Kajang and Kuching where we have DRM and also for Suara Malaysia and Suara Islam stations, short wave transmission is used. However for Suara Islam and Suara Malaysia we have introduced Internet protocol.”

Datuk Ibrahim goes on to explain that it was in the year 2008 that the DRM trial run was carried out in Kajang and MCMC has reported good transmission on DRM is received all over the country including Sarawak. “Our ultimate goal is for all major stations to be equipped with DAB+. DRM will be mainly for areas which need their own transmitter, such as rural areas surrounded by hills and mountains.”

It is with this encouraging start that RTM hopes to implement digital radio along with digital TV in 2012. The only obstacle to this plan is the issue of cost as for listeners to enjoy digital transmission, they need to be equipped with a digital radio set. At the moment, digital radio is not yet available in Malaysia thus cost cannot be calculated. However, taking the America as a reference point, a digital radio set costs US$100.