It has been 18 years of BFM 89.9 broadcasts in Greater Klang Valley since September 2008. BFM 89.9 is an independent English language business radio station, founded by Malek Ali.
During these 18 years, BFM Radio had launched several attempts to expand its coverage outside Greater Klang Valley such as Penang and Johor Bahru. Unfortunately, the frequency applications for Penang and Johor Bahru were rejected by MCMC (Malaysia Communications Multimedia Commission) as there were no available frequency slots. Hence, BFM Radio is not available in Penang and Johor Bahru via frequency transmission, the listeners can tune BFM Radio digitally via online streaming or BFM mobile app.
BFM Radio is only available in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, South Perak, West Pahang, part of Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johor on the frequency FM 89.9MHz, transmitted from Gunung Ulu Kali.
As BFM Radio could not expand coverage in Penang and Johor Bahru, how about East Malaysia cities like Kota Kinabalu and Kuching?
Yes, apparently BFM Radio can expand coverage in East Malaysia by launching tuning frequencies in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu because there are available frequency slots, but there are several limitations needed to be considered deeply.
1. The listeners in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu
* BFM 89.9 is a business radio station in Greater Klang Valley, targeting the PMEBs (Professionals, Managers, Enterprises, and Businessmen/Businesswomen) in busy Klang Valley, but the content may not guarantee to meet East Malaysia's market as the lifestyle and business operation between Klang Valley, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu are different. The former Chinese business radio station CityPlus FM was used to launch in Kuching (FM 92.5MHz), but it only survived up to 2 years. At the end, the radio station was closed in April 2020 and replaced by Kupi-Kupi FM Sarawak in June 2023. Hence, business radio station may not work well in East Malaysia as people prefers more localized content, rather than Kuala Lumpur centric content, unless BFM Radio carries East Malaysia related content in Klang Valley, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu together.
2. Impact to the existing clients (advertisers) who promote their products/services on BFM Radio
* The main clients of BFM 89.9 are actually finance services, insurance and banks, then universities and cars.
* About car advertisement, usually luxury automakers such as BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke/Bavarian Motor Works), Mercedes-Benz, Audi and less extensive Jaguar advertise their cars on BFM 89.9, however these cars are not sold more in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, compare to Klang Valley.
* The existing clients of BFM 89.9 usually focuses to advertise their products and services via radio advertisement in Greater Klang Valley, but most of the clients don't even have any branches in East Malaysia cities such as Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.
* East Malaysia car drivers usually drive Proton, Perodua, Toyota and less extensive Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Honda, the people who own luxury car brands in East Malaysia are not much actually.
Several survey companies like GFK and AC Nielsen conducted radio audience measurement (RAM) survey for many mainstream radio stations, but the RAM survey was only applied in Peninsular Malaysia. So, the result did not include East Malaysia listenership. Actually RAM survey is not relevant to any radio stations nowadays because the clients are smarter by not looking at the "manipulated" RAM survey.
RAM survey can be manipulated by having "fake figure/insight" in order to "fool" the radio clients.
If BFM Radio really wants to expand coverage in East Malaysia, between Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, I would suggest to expand coverage in Kuching first because Kuching is likely more potential than Kota Kinabalu.
Regarding the transmission site, BFM Radio can use either Gunung Serapi or Bukit Djin/Antu transmitter tower for Kuching, Sarawak. Although Gunung Serapi has wider coverage than Bukit Djin/Antu, but it suffers intermodulation interference at Jalan Batu Lintang where located in the vicinity of Bukit Djin/Antu as the towers are occupied by many Kuching commercial radio stations. To avoid intermodulation interference at Jalan Batu Lintang in Kuching, BFM Radio is recommended to use Bukit Djin/Antu tower, but the coverage will not be greater as Gunung Serapi. Commercially, it is already sufficient of BFM Radio to cover Kuching by using Bukit Djin/Antu tower.
As the people can access BFM Radio easily nowadays without frequency transmission through digital platform such as BFM Radio mobile app and online streaming, even Apple CarPlay and Android Auto become very common nowadays, compare to 2017, so the coverage expansion via frequency transmission is no longer important to BFM Radio anymore.
While many commercial radio broadcasters are struggling as they cannot earn much revenue in East Malaysia, it is not necessary of BFM Radio to launch frequencies in East Malaysia.




















