City Kuala Lumpur , Kota Kinabalu , Kuching Broadcast area Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Slogan Muzik Hit Terbaik (The Best Music Hit) Frequency Varies depending on its region First air date January 1997; 20 years ago (1997-01) Format Talk, contemporary hit radio | ||
Era FM is a Malaysian Malay language radio station operated by Astro Radio Sdn. Bhd. The radio station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The radio station went on air on 1 August 1998. In the past few years, this station played a wider mixture of music from the 1980s to current-day, but now it plays Malaysian and international hit songs, including Korean songs. It is also has regional stations in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. On 2015, as according to Nielsen RAM Survey Wave #1, Era FM maintained its position as Malaysia's leading Malay-language station with over 4.8 million listeners.
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History
The frequency slot, which is 103.3 FM in Klang Valley, was originally known as Classic Rock, and was one of the five radio stations first introduced by AMP Radio Networks. It launched on the Malaysian FM airwaves in January 1997 after being one of Astro's audio-only channels since the launch of the satellite network in October the year before. Over the one-year period, demand grew for radio content in Bahasa Malaysia, as listeners who were exposed to AMP's English brands wanted the same formats but in other major local languages. This compelled AMP to make changes to its line-up, swapping Classic Rock to Era FM, leaving Classic Rock as an Astro-only radio station.
On 1 August 1998, Era FM went on air as the first private radio station to be broadcast completely in Malay language, with "Hijau" by Zainal Abidin, which is a trademark for the radio station, being the first song to be played on the radio station, ending the monopoly of Malay-language radio stations by government-owned radio stations. Prior to 2000, like its sister stations, Era FM did not have any frequency in Sabah and Sarawak. The radio station was once the leader in Malay-language FM radio stations, but has lost its popularity to its sister station, Sinar FM. In 2012, Era FM regained the top spot as the most popular radio station in Malaysia with close to 5 million listeners.
Era FM is the first radio station in Malaysia to hold three records in the Malaysia Book Of Records since 1998. In 2010, Era FM expanded to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in East Malaysia, with full operation of on air studio and on ground team, with local announcers conversing in local dialects.