Astro Radio Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Airtime Management and Programming Sdn Bhd or AMP Radio Networks) is a Malaysian radio network company which operates radio broadcasting services and more since 1996. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad. Astro Radio owns and manages 10 private radio stations which are transmitted through the FM (frequency modulation) radio spectrum. As of November 2021, Astro Radio still remains as the number one and largest radio network company in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

with 77.7% of Peninsular Malaysians and 15.6 million listeners tuning in to its stations weekly, together with its

Media Prima Media Prima Berhad, doing business as Media Prima and stylised as media prima, is a Malaysian media company based in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. It is Malaysia's largest media and entertainment conglomerate with business interests in television, pr ...

counterpart, Media Prima Audio, according to the GfK Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) Wave 1 in October 2021. ERA being at top of the list with the most audience reach estimated at 6,000,000 listeners, followed by SINAR and GEGAR.

Company background

Astro Radio was officially launched on 1 June 1996 as Airtime Management & Programming Radio Network with the very first time five opened audio only including

Hitz FM HITZ FM is a privately owned and a commercial radio station in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The station is owned and run by the media group company Multimedia Group Limited. They are one of the top radio stations in Ghana who are well vested in ...

, Mix FM, Light & Easy,

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...

and

TalkRadio TalkRadio (previously styled as talkRADIO) is a talk radio station broadcasting nationally in the United Kingdom, which was relaunched on 21 March 2016. Based in London and owned by Wireless Group, a subsidiary of News Corp., it is the sist ...

. Airtime Management & Programming Radio Network Sdn Bhd (AMP Radio Networks) operates eight terrestrial FM networks: Era FM, MY FM, Hitz FM, Mix FM, LiteFM, Sinar FM, Melody FM & THR (Raaga and Gegar). AMP broadcasts in four languages with 11.5 million Malaysians tuning in weekly. AMP is the sole provider of 19 satellite radio services (which include the nine FM services and are available to all

ASTRO Astro may refer to: Entertainment and media * Astro (South Korean band), a South Korean boy band * Astro (UB40) (1957–2021), member of the British reggae band UB40 * Astro (Chilean band), a Chilean indie rock band * Astro (Japanese band), ...

subscribers in Malaysia and Brunei), the first South-East Asian broadcaster to utilise LIU (local insertion units) for local or regional advertisers and utilises Dynamic RDS (

Radio Data System Radio Data System (RDS) is a communications protocol standard for embedding small amounts of digital information in conventional FM radio broadcasts. RDS standardizes several types of information transmitted, including time, station identificati ...

) as a commercial tool. Internationally, AMP also had involvement in the growth of radio industries in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. AMP develops complementary platforms including on-air, on-ground, on-line and mobile technologies. In 2012, as part of the expansion of its operations, AMP Radio Networks became Astro Radio Sdn Bhd. In October 2017, Astro Radio announced the launch of two new radio brands - goXuan and Zayan for a new generation of smart, technology and socially connected along with the new generation of listeners who are trendsetters and influencers in the digital and social media space. Zayan is the first Malaysian radio brand for modern

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, it aspires to serve this growing community by delivering music, content and dialogue that reverberates among them. While goXUAN goes where the trendsetting Chinese Gen Z are making their mark. Astro Radio has built a state of art live broadcast studio from which the brand will stream live entertainment content via its digital platforms throughout the whole day. Unlike any other radio brand in Malaysia, goXUAN is visually-led. On 1 January 2018, Astro Radio dropped the suffix “FM” as part of the rebranding for all its 11 radio stations, to focus on digital platform, inline with the current technology development.

Other brands

Raku

Astro Radio launched a radio and

music streaming service A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream d ...

platform known as Raku in April 2015 through mobile and web. Raku is a short-form for ''Radio Aku'' (‘My Radio’ in

Bahasa Malaysia Malaysian Malay ( ms, Bahasa Melayu Malaysia), also known as Standard Malay (Malay: ''Bahasa Melayu Standard''), ( English translation: Malaysian language), or simply Malay, is a standardized form of the Malay language used in Malaysia (as o ...

). Through Raku, Malaysians can stream millions of songs, videos and playlists curated by top local artistes including Yuna, Paper Plane Pursuit,

Dasha Logan Priyadashini Loganathan (born December 17, 1987), known professionally as Dasha Logan, is a Malaysian singer-songwriter. She began her professional singing career at age 17 in her home town of Penang, Malaysia. Dasha is the daughter of Loganat ...

and many more. Users can also listen to more than 20 live radio stations through the free and premium versions of Raku. The application also provides local community updates such as articles, news, traffic and sports. Raku is available in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

, Mandarin and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

. However, Raku services were rebranded into the new SYOK platform in 2019.

SYOK

Astro Radio launched a multilingual

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

and

lifestyle Lifestyle often refers to: * Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives * ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle * Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality Lifestyle may also refer to: Bu ...

platform known as SYOK in July 2019. The platform can allow users to listen to 26 Astro Radio brands (including online-only stations or

Direct-To-Home Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

THstations that are available on

Astro TV Astro may refer to: Entertainment and media * Astro (South Korean band), a South Korean boy band * Astro (UB40) (1957–2021), member of the British reggae band UB40 * Astro (Chilean band), a Chilean indie rock band * Astro (Japanese band), ...

, and East Malaysian stations) via live online streaming, listen to

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

s of all live radio and exclusive content, watch original short-form videos, read current articles, news and traffic updates and participate in contests. (1) ERA - Muzik Hit Terkini (2) SINAR - Menyinari Hidupmu (3) GEGAR - Pilihan #1 Pantai Timur (4) ZAYAN - Destinasi Nasyid Anda (5) MY - MY, 好玩! (6) MELODY - 心聆听，新体会 (7) GOXUAN - 够Fun (8) HITZ - All the HITZ, All the time (9) LITE - All-Time Favourites (10) RAAGA - Aaha… Sirantha Isai (11) ERA (Sabah) (12) HITZ (Sabah) (13) MY (Sabah) (14) ERA (Sarawak) (15) HITZ (Sarawak) (16) MY (Sarawak) (17) SYOK Bayu (18) SYOK Gold (19) SYOK India Beat (20) SYOK Jazz (21) SYOK Kenyalang (22) SYOK Opus (23) SYOK Osai (24) SYOK Classic Rock (25) Astro Arena

Stations

Defunct radio stations

AMP changed its line-up, swapping two of its English FM brands, namely Classic Rock and TalkRadio, for ERA FM (

) and MY FM ( Chinese), respectively. Melody FM was launched on 15 August 2012 to replace XFM on FM and Astro.