Analysts: Rev Asia buy will let BN take pulse of the youth, but not much more

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — Barisan Nasional (BN) could gain crucial insight into the interests of young voters via Media Prima Berhad’s acquisition of Rev Asia Holdings Berhad, analysts said.

Rev Asia is the country’s biggest digital media platform, with a monthly audience that is five million strong and mostly young, and would give the coalition the advantage of being able to identify trends and key issues with which to better tailor its messaging for the demographic.

Umno, BN’s dominant component and owner of Media Prima, said last year that six million youth voters, or close to 50 per cent of the total electorate, are expected to cast their ballot in the next polls, arguably making them the next “kingmakers”.

But despite the platform’s potential to help BN bridge communications with the young, this will not necessarily translate to automatic support, pundits told Malay Mail Online.

“The data and digital footprint from Rev Asia’s products will certainly allow BN to understand the Malaysian youths better and identify the key trends in the demographics, most importantly the Chinese and urban English-speaking communities,” said Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, analyst at public policy consulting firm Bower Group Asia.

“However, will the online traffic translate into votes? It’s very unlikely,” he added.

Data-intensive targeted messaging is a relatively new idea to most parts of the world, including Malaysia.

While some analysts may argue that the recent victory of current United States President Donald Trump proved how a campaign built on database was effective in influencing the presidential election’s outcome, there is no conclusive data yet to suggest that the same strategy could produce similar results elsewhere.

In Malaysia, political ownership of media outlets is common, as are strict laws governing the publication of newspapers and magazines, characteristics that make it difficult for opposition parties to get coverage equal to the establishment.

But with print media numbers moving inversely to the Internet penetration rate, this control is no longer as influential as it once was.

“Even with whatever that has emanated from NST, Utusan have not succeeded in re-aligning the votes [back to BN] although they do have a captive audience,” Datuk Mohamad Abu Bakar, senior analyst with Universiti Malaya, told Malay Mail Online.

Mohamad was referring to New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia, respectively English and Malay language newspapers that were once the leaders in their segments.

The dwindling sales of both NST and Utusan that are owned by Umno — with the former through Media Prima—are the clearest indicator of how control over media does not necessarily translate to support for the government, Mohammad pointed out.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), Utusan Malaysia’s readership fell 7 per cent from the second half of 2015 to the first half of last year.

The NST’s decline was worse, with circulation dropping 29 per cent in the same period to just over 44,000 daily copies, which reportedly prompted Media Prima to overhaul the English paper’s senior management in a major restructuring that kicked off this year.

On Monday, it was reported that Media Prima Digital, a subsidiary of Media Prima, had acquired total control over Rev Asia for RM105 million, making Media Prima the biggest Malaysian digital media company.

Industry magazine Marketing reported today that the acquisition by Media Prima’s wholly-owned subsidiary would see the group’s digital platform audience double up to 10.4 million from five million.

AmBank Research in a note issued yesterday said the acquisition of Rev Asia by Media Prima will give the latter a digital audience reach totalling 10.4 million people, which will vault the media company to the top spot in digital reach locally, after giants Google and Facebook.

Described as a digital advertising solutions and content creation company, Rev Asia owns popular aggregation sites such as OhBulan, Says, Viral Cham, Rojaklah, 8share, MyResipi and SirapLimau under its umbrella.

Analysts said the sheer size of the audience alone will definitely help BN close the campaign gap with the Opposition, which already has an established presence online thanks to government censorship of traditional media.

But again, they cautioned that using Rev Asia’s mostly lifestyle or entertainment sites to propagate pro-status quo messages will likely turn many of the young audience off.

“I am not convinced at all that such sites can influence readers too much. Once a political agenda becomes obvious, such sites will lose credibility,” deputy director of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Ooi Kee Beng, said.

“In simple terms, the information on offer nowadays is too broad for control of one or two websites to make a difference.”