Celebrity gossip rags a favorite with the wealthy

Mariani Dewi ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 05/13/2008 10:39 AM  |  Headlines

Ever wonder what rich Indonesians do in their spare time? Quite a few of them apparently read gossip tabloids.

According to a survey released Monday, more than two-fifths of people officially classified as wealth read tabloids, with their favorite topics celebrity gossip and recipes -- easily beating out other topics such as health, sports, business and religion.

The surveyor did not find this surprising though.

"It is quite expected that people who buy tabloids will look for those kind of topics," said Ika Jatmikasari, associate director of Nielsen Media Research, which conducted the study involving 1,052 respondents aged over 15 from the upper economic classes in the major cities Jakarta and Surabaya.

Overall, the survey finds this group consumes much larger amounts of media, including tabloids, than average Indonesians and seems to have preferred ways of getting different information.

Magazines, for example, are read more for fashion and health information and stories, while newspapers are for heavier news. There are also subtle differences between residents of Jakarta and Surabaya.

"Surabaya people are very concerned with local news, more than headlines and national events. But Jakartans see headlines as the main attraction," Ika said.

Newspaper readership among the rich is three-fold the media index that represents the average Indonesian. This may relate to the level of education as three-fifths of the rich in Jakarta have a higher education than the general public.

News is also the main draw for television, absorbing the interest of one-quarter of respondents.

More than half of the survey respondents listen to the radio in their cars. In Jakarta, they listen to the radio in their cars more frequently than at home.

"Most probably it is due to the traffic jams in Jakarta. People spend more time traveling. The same trend can be seen in Manila and Bangkok (where traffic jams are major problems)," the executive director of Nielsen Media Research, Mark Neely, said.

The obviously difference in behavior is in Internet usage. Almost one in three use the Internet to access search engines, news and networking sites, and to send e-mails. Few use it for job searches and Internet banking.

The respondents are meant to represent the 385,000 affluent people of the 21 million residents aged over 15 in Greater Jakarta (1.6 percent) and 54,000 of 2 million residents in Surabaya (2.3 percent).

The affluent are categorized as those households with minimum basic monthly expenditures of Rp 5 million with their own brick house by a main road and at least one car.

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