TV & Radio in Sabah: Channels and RTM Stations Guide
What TV channels and radio stations are there in Sabah?
Sabah's main television comes from RTM Sabah (TV1, TV2, TVi plus local content), the free-to-air TV Okey channel, and the online platform Borneo.TV. Radio is led by RTM Sabah stations including Sabah FM, Sabah V FM, Sandakan FM, Tawau FM and Keningau FM.
Broadcasting in Sabah
Broadcasting in Sabah is shaped by the state's geography and its many language communities. Television and radio here are dominated by RTM, Malaysia's government broadcaster, which carries national channels while also producing local content for Sabah audiences. Layered on top of that public-service base are newer offerings: a dedicated free-to-air channel for East Malaysia, and an online platform that tells Sabah's stories to the wider world.
Radio in particular reflects how spread out Sabah is. Rather than a single statewide station, RTM runs a network of regional FM stations, each serving a different part of the state and, in several cases, a different language audience. This network reaches from the coastal cities into the interior, where indigenous-language broadcasting plays an important role.
For a visitor, the practical takeaway is that you can expect both national Malaysian programming and a distinct layer of Sabah-specific content, whether you are watching television in Kota Kinabalu or tuning a car radio in the interior. The mix is deliberately local, with news bulletins, cultural programmes and indigenous-language segments built into the schedule.
Television channels
The backbone of television in Sabah is RTM Sabah, operated by RTM (Radio Television Malaysia), the government broadcaster. It delivers the national channels TV1, TV2 and TVi through the national feed, and supplements them with local content produced for the state. That local content includes Sabah news bulletins, cultural programmes and indigenous-language segments, coordinated through RTM's Sabah Bureau in Kota Kinabalu.
Alongside RTM sits TV Okey, a free-to-air digital television channel launched on 21 March 2018. TV Okey is focused on Sabah and Sarawak, and its programming centres on local East Malaysian lifestyle, entertainment and Sabah-centric shows. It holds a notable place as the first new free-to-air channel in Malaysia dedicated to East Malaysia content in the modern era — a recognition that audiences in Sabah and Sarawak wanted programming that reflected their own region rather than a purely peninsular outlook.
RTM Sabah does not just relay national channels — it produces Sabah news bulletins, cultural programmes and indigenous-language segments through its Sabah Bureau in Kota Kinabalu.
Between RTM's public-service mix and TV Okey's regional focus, Sabah viewers have access to both nationwide programming and channels that speak directly to East Malaysian life.
Online video platforms
Beyond traditional broadcast television, Sabah is represented online by Borneo.TV, an online video and streaming platform. Its tagline, "Cerita Sabah di Mata Dunia" — meaning "Stories of Sabah in the Eyes of the World" — captures its mission to present the state to a global audience. The platform specialises in documentaries, nature, culture and travel content about Sabah, and it distributes this material through YouTube and its own website.
Borneo.TV reflects a wider shift in how regional stories reach viewers. Where RTM and TV Okey rely on scheduled broadcast, an online platform can publish to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world, on demand. For a state with as much natural and cultural appeal as Sabah, that is a useful complement to broadcast television, giving travellers and the curious a window into the destination before they ever arrive.
For anyone researching Sabah's landscapes, wildlife or cultural traditions, Borneo.TV's documentary and travel focus makes it a natural counterpart to the news-and-lifestyle emphasis of the broadcast channels.
RTM Sabah radio stations
Radio in Sabah is led by a network of RTM Sabah stations, each tied to a region and a language audience. The flagship English-language station is Sabah FM, broadcasting on 89.9 FM. Alongside it, Sabah V FM serves Malay and vernacular listeners across various frequencies, while a set of regional stations cover the main population centres outside the capital.
| Station | Frequency | Language |
|---|---|---|
| Sabah FM | 89.9 FM | English |
| Sabah V FM | Various frequencies | Malay / vernacular |
| Sandakan FM | Regional | Malay / local |
| Tawau FM | Regional | Malay / local |
| Keningau FM | Regional | Malay and interior dialects |
The regional stations — Sandakan FM, Tawau FM and Keningau FM — keep their programming close to the communities they serve, broadcasting in Malay and local languages. Keningau FM, based in the interior, carries Malay and interior dialects and serves the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut communities of that part of Sabah.
Languages and regional reach
The breadth of Sabah's radio network is one of its defining features. Sabah has more RTM regional radio stations than most Malaysian states, a direct reflection of the state's geographic spread and linguistic diversity. Where a more compact state might be served by one or two stations, Sabah's distances and the number of distinct communities make a wider network necessary.
That network is not just about coverage; it is about language. The interior stations in particular serve indigenous-language audiences, carrying content in dialects that listeners in the highlands and interior valleys actually speak. Keningau FM's role with the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut communities is a clear example: a station whose programming is shaped around the languages of the interior rather than only the national language.
Taken together with the television channels and Borneo.TV, this radio network shows how Sabah's broadcast media tries to reach across both geography and language — from English on Sabah FM in the capital to interior dialects in Keningau — so that the state's diverse communities can all find programming in a familiar voice.