Release: Immediate Release
Date: 24th September 2019
PR 22/19
BA JULY AUDIENCE SURVEY REGISTERS TELEVISION AND RADIO AUDIENCES SHIFTS
The Broadcasting Authority has released the audience assessment survey carried out in July 2019.
For this assessment forty daily questionnaires were compiled by the NSO giving a total sample of 1,240 respondents with the youngest being 12 year olds. Overall, this sample gives a margin of error of ±2.51%. The data was analysed demographically by gender, by age-group, and by six geographical districts.
TELEVISION
As much as 54.6% of the population have watched TV during July. Compared to previous data, there was a decrease of 8.8% of viewers over the previous assessment period of March (63.4%); and a decrease of 4.2% of a similar period last year (July 2018 – 58.8%).
On average TV viewers have spent as much as 1.65hrs watching TV – this was 5’2” less than that registered at the previous assessment in March (1.74hrs) and 12 minutes lower than that of July 2018 (1.81hrs).
Audience Reach – Popularity:
Overall, while 68.2% of all viewers followed local TV sationes, as much as 31.8% watched a foreign station. The largest amount of viewers were attained by TVM (33.9%), ONE (17.9%), and Net TV (10.1%) respectively. These these stations had audiences from all the demographical groups by gender, by age-groups and by district.
Peak audiences of the top three local TV stations were:
• TVM on Tuesdays with 19.98%
• ONE on Wednesdays with 11.99%;
• Net TV on Thursdays with 5.46%.
Audience Share – Airtime:
The total airtime available for viewers was distributed as follows:
Excluding Foreign stations, TVM ranked first with 25% of all the audiences, followed by ONE with 20.3%, and Net TV with 9.3%.
Favourite Programme Genres:
The most favourite programme genres named by respondents are: Local & Foreign News (23.0%); local Drama (14.3%); Discussion & Current Affairs (10.4%); Documentaries (9.9%); and Cultural/educational programmes (8.9%).
Television service:
The most common type of reception service provided to television viewers is through a paid subscription – 92.8%. The next most common are IT based services (36%) followed by a satellite service (2.4%). Of all the respondents 2.1% have stated that they only have a Free-to-sir service.
RADIO
52% of the population have listened to Radio during July. Compared to previous data, there was a decrease of 4% over the previous assessment period of March (56%) and a decrease of 1% over that of a similar period last year (July 2018 – 53%). However, while 52% of respondents have stated that they listen to radio every day, another 15.2% have stated that they listen to radio at least once a week; another 23.8% have stated that they do not generally listen to radio; while another 6.9% have stated that they never listen to radio.
On average radio listeners have spent as much as 3.27hrs each. Compared to previous assessments, there was an increase of 15 minutes per listener over the previous assessment of March (3.02hrs) and an increase of 6’36” over that of a similar period last year (July 2018 – 3.16hrs).
Audience Reach – Popularity:
Over all the listeners, 89.7 Bay attracted the largest amount of radio listeners (25.9%); followed by ONE Radio (16.5%) and Radju Malta (11.6%).
On a week-day average, however, ONE Radio attained the highest total average amongst all stations and it had the highest average for all the weekdayds except for Thursdays and Saturdays where 89.7 Bay had the highest average amongst all stations for those days.
Again, ONE Radio had the highest peaks amongst all stations on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays while 89.7Bay had the highest peak amongst all stations on Tuesdays, Thursdys, and Saturdays. On average, the listeners of ONE Radio have spent as much as 5.03hrs while those of 89.7 Bay have spend as much as 1.95hrs.
Audience Share: Airtime
The total airtime available for radio listeners was distributed as follows:
ONE Radio had the largest amount of audience share (25.4%); followed by 89.7 Bay (15.6%); and Calypso Radio (13.3%).
Radio Favourite Programme Genre:
When asked what is their favourite radio programme, as much as 80.4% of the respondents named a programme genre; the rest either named a specific programme or named a specific station.
Out of those who named a programme genre, the most quoted were Music programmes (53.8% including those stating “music and another genre”); another 16.1% did not have any preference but stated that they like all programmes on radio; 7.8% for Religious programmes (including “Religious & ...”); and 7.5% for News (including “News & ...).
Another 9.1% of respondents named a programme classified under “Morning Drive” (from 6:00am to 10:00am); another 8.7% named a programme during “Daytime” (from 10:00 to 15:00); while another 1.1% named an “Afternoon Drive” programme (15:00 to 19:00). 0.43% of respondents named a programme during “Evening time”; while another 0.3% named an “Overnight” programe.
DAB+ Radio:
15.1% of respondents have stated that they have a DAB+ radio-set - 67% of these have stated that they listen to their DAB+ radio-set for local stations only; another 25.1% stated that they listen to both local and foreign stations; while 5.5% stated that they follow foreign station only. The rest (2.3%) have stated that they do not use their DAB+ radio-set.
The full version of the results of the survey can be downloaded from the Authority’s website.
Mario Axiak, M.B.A (Maastricht)
Head, Research & Communications
24th September 2019
-----o-----
Click here for Press Release 22/19
Click here for the full Assessment of July 2019
Click here for previous assessments