Sabah V FM Live Streaming
Most radio stations pick a language and stay with it. Sabah V FM carries six.
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English, Kadazan, Dusun, Mandarin, Bajau and Murut all share the same service – a line-up with almost nothing in common except the state they are spoken in. The live stream is playing on this page, free, with nothing to install and no account to create.
Six Languages, One Frequency
Look at that list again and the logic becomes clear only when you stop looking for a linguistic pattern.
Kadazan and Dusun are closely related and together make up Sabah’s largest indigenous grouping. Murut is another of the state’s indigenous languages, spoken mostly inland. Bajau belongs to a largely coastal community. English and Mandarin are not indigenous to Sabah at all, but plenty of Sabahans use them daily.
There is no language family holding that set together. What holds it together is a place. Sabah V FM is not organised around who speaks what – it is organised around who lives there.
The Station for Everyone Sabah FM Doesn’t Serve
RTM runs two main services for the state, and the division between them is simple.
Sabah FM is the Malay-language station. Sabah V FM takes everything else. Both descend from the original Radio Sabah, which ran two parallel networks from the 1950s – the Malay one, and the second network that carried the state’s other languages and eventually became Sabah V FM.
Seventy years later the same split is still in place, for the same reason it was drawn in the first place.
Who Actually Speaks These Languages
Sabah’s ethnic makeup is the most varied of any Malaysian state, and that is not a throwaway line – it is the operating condition the station was built around.
The Kadazandusun communities are the largest indigenous grouping. The Murut are concentrated in the interior, the Bajau largely along the coast, and there are dozens of smaller groups besides, many with their own languages. Add the Chinese Sabahan community and English as a widely used working language, and a single Malay-language service was never going to cover the state on its own.
A multilingual station is the practical answer to that, rather than an idealistic one.
The Rest of RTM’s Sabah Line-Up
Sabah V FM sits inside a larger network of RTM stations across the state, and it is easy to mix them up:
- VOKFM – 106.6 MHz, in Malay, covering the Kota Kinabalu area
- Keningau FM – 98.4 MHz, in Malay, Dusun and Murut, for the Interior Division
- Sandakan FM – 90.1 MHz, in Malay, for Sandakan
- Tawau FM – 100.1 MHz, in Malay, for Tawau
- Labuan FM – 103.7 MHz, in Malay, for Labuan
Worth noting: despite the name, VOKFM is a Malay-language service, not an indigenous-language one. Keningau FM is the other station carrying Dusun and Murut, alongside Malay, for the interior specifically.
When the Valley Is in the Way
Sabah is mountainous, heavily forested and thinly settled in places, which is hard on radio. FM signals do not bend around mountains, and a good many of the communities whose languages this station carries live exactly where the terrain is worst.
That is where the stream earns its place. It needs no line of sight to a transmitter, no aerial and no frequency for your particular valley.
It plays in a browser on a phone, tablet or laptop, wherever there is a connection – which also matters for the many Sabahans now working in the peninsula, Singapore or further afield, well outside any RTM Sabah signal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who operates Sabah V FM?
RTM, Malaysia’s public broadcaster.
What languages does it broadcast in?
English, Kadazan, Dusun, Mandarin, Bajau and Murut.
How is it different from Sabah FM?
Sabah FM is the Malay-language service. Sabah V FM carries the state’s other languages.
Where does it come from historically?
From the second of the two networks Radio Sabah ran from the 1950s – the one that handled the state’s non-Malay languages.
Is VOKFM the same thing?
No. VOKFM broadcasts in Malay on 106.6 MHz around Kota Kinabalu.
Which other station carries Dusun and Murut?
Keningau FM, on 98.4 MHz, serving Sabah’s Interior Division in Malay, Dusun and Murut.
Can I listen from outside Sabah?
Yes, through the stream. It works anywhere with an internet connection.
Does listening cost anything?
No. The stream is free, with no sign-up.
Conclusion
Radio usually sorts people by language. Sabah V FM sorts them by geography and then deals with the languages as they come – six of them, on one service, because that is what the state actually sounds like.
Leave it playing long enough and the language will change on you. That is not a fault in the scheduling. It is the whole design.