Jakarta. You might not expect it, but in this age of the internet apparently radio — which one might be forgiven for thinking is fast slipping into an anachronism — still attracts many young audience and generates increasing revenue from advertising, according to a survey by research company Nielsen.

The Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement survey involved 8,400 randomly selected respondents from 11 cities in Indonesia, and found that radio was the fourth most popular form of media in the third quarter of this year, outperforming newspapers and magazines.

During the quarter, radio still managed to reach an estimated 20 million listeners and was only behind television, static outdoor media and the internet in terms of audience.

More than half of the radio listeners in the survey are Indonesia's future consumers — the so-called Generation Z, tweens and teenagers aged 10-19, and the millennials, young people between 20 and 34 years old — who on average spend more than two hours a day listening to the radio.

Every week they listen to the radio for more than 16 hours, even more than last year.

Generation X, Indonesians aged between 35 and 49 years old, spend even longer listening to the radio each week, at more than 18 hours, an hour longer than last year.

"Radio can target local audience, which allows it to compete with the internet. In cities such as Yogyakarta, Bandung, Banjarmasin, Makasar and Palembang, it even outscores the internet," Nielsen said in a press release.

"Radio is still considered a community-based medium, so a message on the radio can be tailored to reach a more specific audience," the press release said.

According to the survey, most people listen to radio broadcasts at home, and only one in 20 listen to the radio in their cars while driving. The survey also indicated that four out of 10 people listen to radio programs on their mobile phones.

Radio advertising, also according to the survey, spiked in May and June, due to the Ramadan and Idul Fitri holiday, with Shell being the top ad spender at Rp 18 billion ($1.4 million) in the first half of the year.

Nielsen claims that radio advertising still has good prospects in Indonesia, especially in pop music programs, popular with the millennials and Generation Z youngsters, and in dangdut music programs, which are popular among Generation X listeners and older audience aged 50-64, the so-called Baby Boomers.