P

eople in Java are beginning to turn their back on traditional media outlets and are looking instead to the Internet for news and entertainment, according to a finding by media research firm Nielsen Indonesia.

Despite growth in Internet use, the study found that traditional media (print and broadcast) were still popular particularly outside Java.

Consumption of print media has been growing steadily over the past five years outside Java.

Nielsen'€™s media managing director, Irawati Pratignyo, said Wednesday that television was still the most consumed media outlet, penetrating into 95 percent of the country'€™s population.

While Internet usage had doubled both in Java and outside Java over the last five years, the study found that media consumption patterns were different in the two surveyed areas during that period.

Overall, Internet penetration was only 33 percent in the first quarter of 2014, followed by radio with 20 percent, newspaper with 12 percent, cinema with 11 percent, tabloids with 6 percent and magazines with 5 percent.

Generally, penetration of most forms of media actually declined since 2010, except television, which remained unchanged, and Internet, which saw its growth double from 17 percent. Radio suffered the steepest decline, down by 12 percent compared to five years ago.

Media penetration in Java followed the nationwide trend, with radio use declining 13 percent to only 18 percent this year. Cinema, newspaper and tabloids slumped to 12 percent, 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Java'€™s current Internet penetration is 34 percent, compared to 17 percent in 2010.

However, Irawati said overall media consumption outside Java was higher than it was on the island. Newspaper and radio penetration on Indonesia'€™s other islands were twice as high as they were on Java.

'€œOnly cinema and Internet penetration are below those of Java, which is possibly due to lack of infrastructure available in the areas. However, Internet is also showing robust growth in those regions outside Java, up from 19 percent in 2010 to 32 percent in 2014,'€ Irawati said.

Radio '€” despite seeing a 7 percent decline in market penetration '€” is still dominating media consumption outside Java with 37 percent, second after television with 97 percent.

Irawati added that in contrast with Java, more people outside the island were reading newspapers, causing print media penetration to rise by about 3 percent over the last five years to 26 percent.

The average amount of time spent by people outside Java reading newspapers is also higher than in Java.

The survey reveals that Palembang residents spent the most time reading newspapers, up to 47 minutes a day, while Denpasar residents'€™ time reading newspapers rose from 18 minutes to 34 minutes.

In Jakarta, people spend only about 35 minutes reading newspapers per day, the most amount of time of any city on the island. The time spent by Bandung residents reading newspapers dropped from 32 minutes to 20 minutes.

The study also showed that 72 percent of surveyed households outside Java owned cell phones, compared to 68 percent in Java.

'€œHowever, the growth of Internet access via mobile devices in Java surged by fivefold, while the outside of the island it only rose three times,'€ said Irawati.

'€œAgain, this is mostly due to different levels of infrastructure among different locations. People can easily find WiFi access anywhere in big cities in Java,'€ she added.

The survey targeted five cities in Java and compared them with five cities outside of the island.

The five cities in Java were Greater Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, while the areas outside of Java were Medan, Palembang, Denpasar, Banjarmasin and Makassar.