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Media has evolved. A long time ago, messages were put across through word of mouth, smoke signals, horns, and other hyperlocal methods. Printing presses showed up in the 1400s, the radio was invented in the 1800s, and the television came up in 1920s. These innovations have invariably led to changes in media channel tastes. Now is the era of the internet and there has been yet another massive shift to new media, especially among the youth.
In this report, we highlight snapshot results from a continuous survey we’re running on the GeoPoll App to assess the media preferences, preferred channels, and media consumption habits among our app users in Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa.
Most Accessed Media and Why
The first question we asked in the survey was which media our app users consume the most between the internet, TV, newspapers, magazines, and radio. A vast majority of respondents (81%) chose the internet, affirming the importance of online media in day-to-day life. Overall, 13% selected television and 5% went for radio, although these shares varied from country to country. For example, radio scored 5.41% in Kenya but dropped off the charts completely in Indonesia, with very few respondents selecting radio as their most consumed media.
When we asked them why they most consume the various types of media, each channel displayed different reasons.
Most people said they mostly read newspapers for political news. They access the internet, listen to the radio, and watch TV for entertainment, and read magazines to stay on top of fashion trends.
Radio Listenership
Radio may not be the favorite media channel, but most people (82%) said they at least occasionally listen to radio stations. In fact, the highest percentage (42%) said they tune in daily. The next highest percentage (32%) rarely listen to the radio, while 17% listen about once a week.
As to why they listen to the radio, half of the respondents said they listen to music while the rest mostly listen to news (26%) and talk shows (24%). This trend held in most of the countries surveyed with Pakistan the outlier, as more people listen to news (44%) than listen to music (40%).
Overall, most people listen to radio at home.
Television
Now, let’s touch on TV viewership briefly. In the survey, we asked our respondents if they watch television, and most said they do (94%).
When we dug deeper into the frequency of watching TV, a majority (73%) said they watch TV daily with 10% saying they watch at about once a week. Fourteen percent watch TV less often than that. Pakistan showed the greatest variance, with 58% that watch TV daily compared to 15% that watch weekly.
About this Survey
These results are from a survey conducted continuously via the GeoPoll App from March 2021 through when the results were extracted on September 13th 2021. We have weighted the results featured in this article from 14,000 responses from respondents in Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. Since this is not a scientific study, the findings are likely to skew towards younger males in urban areas.
To conduct a scientific study on media preferences or to get information about GeoPoll Audience Measurement data in these or other countries, please contact us.