Astro Radio and Star Radio Group (SRG) have both pointed to large falls in listening to English radio in Malaysia, picked up by the latest Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) survey by Nielsen.

An Astro press release described it as a “sharp decline”, while SRG also mentioned a “drop in total English radio listenership across Malaysia”.

No specific figures were given and Nielsen doesn’t publish its data publicly.

Astro says that despite the fall, its English stations hitz.fm, MIX fm and LiteFM maintained an overall stronghold with a 79 percent share of the segment.

hitz.fm remains the No.1 English Radio Station and ranks among the top 10 most-listened-to radio stations in the country, it says.

MIX fm’s PM drive show reached 157,000 listeners per week in September, a 20 percent higher reach than its morning show.

Among all English stations, LITE FM achieved the longest Time Spent Listening  (TSL) to a radio station at 9hrs 59mins.

Meanwhile SRG says that its English channel Red FM now reaches 97,000 weekly listeners and secured the highest TSL among under 35-year-olds of 10hrs 3mins.

Its female targeted station Capital FM does not take part in the Nielsen research but according to separate figures from Radio Active, has seen digital listenership grow 1341 percent year on year with nearly 19,000 unique online listeners in September.