Release: Immediate
Date: 20th April 2018
PR 02/18
BA SURVEY REGISTERS RADIO AND TELEVISION AUDIENCES INCREASE
The Broadcasting Authority has released the audience assessment survey for February 2018.
The survey reveals that 71.8% of the population are regular radio listeners with 51.4% listen to radio every day while another 20.4% listen to radio at least once a week. As much as 212,000 persons (aged 12 years and over) listen to radio regularly. On the other hand as much as 264,000 persons (aged 12 years and over) follow television regularly. This is about two-thirds of the population (63.3%).
During February 2018, radio listeners spent an average of 2.99hrs every day following their favourite radio station. This were 12 minutes more than the time registered over the previous assessment of October 2017. Watching television averages 1.81hrs and this was 15’36” higher than that registered at the start of the broadcasting season in October 2017 (1.55hrs).
Data was collected by the National Statistics Office during the month of February 2018. A sample of 1,240 was collected with the youngest interviewed being 12 years old while the eldest person contacted was 99 years old.
Radio
Respondents were asked whether they have a DAB+ radio-set to listen to radio and, if so, what type of content do they listen to. Although 1.1% stated that they do not have a radio-set and 68.4% stated that they do bot have a DAB+ radio-set, only 11.0% stated that they do have a DAB+ radio-set; while another 6.3% replied that they do not know what kind of set they have.
Radio listening increases with age from half of all 12-20 year olds (54.8%) to more than three-quarters of all those over 50 years old (77.3%).
In general, radio listeners tend to follow one particular radio station. Bay Radio attracted the largest amount of radio listeners (22.31%); followed by ONE Radio (17.75) and Radju Malta (10.13%). While Bay Radio was the most followed station by all those under fifty years old (with 70.35% of all 12-20 year olds, 52.59% of all 21-30 year olds and 31.84% of all 31.50 year olds) ONE Radio was the most followed station by all those over fifty years old (with 23.96% of all 51-70 years old and 32.01% of all 71+ year olds).
However, taking into consideration the amount of time that each listener spent following programmes on radio, ONE Radio attained the highest share of air-time. While the listeners of Bay Radio spent an average of 2.17hrs, the listeners of ONE Radio spent an average of 4.49hrs. Overall, ONE Radio ranked first with 26.66% of all air-time; followed by Bay Radio (16.22%) and Radju Malta (10.46%).
Television
Respondents were asked what type of programme they like to watch on local television stations. Local and Foreign News were the most favourite programme genre (27.2%); followed by local Drama (17.3%); and Discussion & Current affairs programmes (12.6%). Analysed by gemder, male preferences greatly exceeded female preferences for Sports programmes (M: 29.7%; F:7.8%) while fremale preferences greatly exceeded male preferences for Drama (F: 54.9%; M:33.5%).
The most common service to watch television is that of a paid subscription (66.0%) followed by Internet based services (10.8%). 4.6% of the population follow television on the Free-to-air platform. Of this group, 62.6% (or 12,100) have an only Free-to-air connection while the rest (37.4%; 7,300) makes use of one or more the the other services available.
264,000 persons (aged 12 years and over) follow television regularly. This is about two-thirds of the population (63.3%). Compared to previous data, there was a decrease of 1.4% of viewers over the previous assessment period of October 2017 and a decrease of 5.0% over that of the same period last year.
TVM attracted the largest amount of TV-viewers (35.63%); followed by ONE (17.18%), Net TV (9.97%), and TVM2 (2.36%). Beside these, 32.03% of the population followed a foreign TV station. On average TV viewers spent about 1.81hrs every day watching their favourite programme.
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
20th April 2018
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Click here for Press Release 02/18
Click here for the full Assessment of Feb 2018
Click here for previous assessments