Media Concentration
The Cambodian media market is concentrated in every sector, with a highly concentrated TV sector, a medium concentrated radio sector and a highly concentrated print sector. Evaluating concentration in the online sector is difficult – since there is no relevant consumption data available.
Since the major 4 owners in TV MARKET reach out to an audience share of 78%, it is considered as highly concentrated according to the MOM Indicators. 91% of the audience is watching 9 TV channels. The Royal Group alone attracts 47% of the audience through its media company Cambodia Broadcasting Service (CBS). Most popular TV stations and programs are mainly focusing on entertainment, and the 2 news TV channels represent only 2% of the audience. This shows the interest for local and international news is limited.
With the Top 4 RADIO stations covering 43% of the audience in Cambodia, the concentration on the radio market is medium according to the MOM Indicators. It is also the most fragmented with 8 of the 10 most relevant radio stations, reaching between 4-6% of the audience. This means they potentially have the same - limited - influence on opinion formation. Unlike the TV market, most stations belong to small businesses and independent voices, such as Mongkul Sovann, Sambok Khmum or the Tonle Group (Tonle FM). Even if Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA) are not listed here – since they aren’t stand-alone radio outlets – their independent news and foreign content programs of are among the most popular ones.
The Top 4 PRINT outlets reach 57% of the audience share, which means a high concentration. The print market is dominated by CPP-affiliated media outlets, with 3 of the Top 4 print media selected belonging to owners or newsrooms affiliated to the ruling party. While the exact circulation numbers are missing, these newspapers, as a whole, claim to represent at least 65,000 copies a day. However, the print market remains the less popular sector when it comes to audience, with 90% of Cambodians stating they never read a newspaper.
The ONLINE market is one of the most crowded industries of the country with 31 Internet Service providers licensed and 7 active phone operators able to provide online data plans, according to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. These include two state-owned ISPs. It is still unclear which the top ISPs and phone operators are, therefore the concentration could not be calculated.
The Top 4 Media companies and owners are CBS (Royal Group) (45.1% cross-media audience share), Hang Meas (23.1%), Hun Mana (6.5%) and Seng Bunveng (8.7%). This adds up to 83.4% of cross-media audience shares, proofing a high concentration of media companies that have a potential influence on public opinion. This result is related to the highly concentrated TV market that gets attention by 96% of the population: Ownership in a popular TV outlet already means a notable influence on audiences (see Royal Group, Hang Meas). CROSS-MEDIA OWNERSHIP in the original sense – as media owners expand their businesses across media sectors – does not exist to a large extent in Cambodia. Rather than opening new media businesses in different sectors – and thus involving in the timely process of applying for licenses – owners seem to expand their already existing media businesses in a single sector. 3 of the 4 Top Owners operate only in 2 media sectors.
For more details also see the MOM Indicator on Media Concentration.
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