Release: Immediate
2nd October 2024
PR 22/24
Audience Survey July 2024
The Broadcasting Authority is pleased to announce that it has just issued the results of the audience assessment survey carried out in July 2024.
The object of this periodic audience assessment survey is to capture and assess the viewer/listenership of TV, radio and online content and identify the preferred source of local news amongst Maltese residents aged 12+ years. Hence, this audience survey is carried out with ‘individuals’ and not ‘households’. This research approach allows the BA to obtain statistically significant media audience research findings (within the stated confidence intervals), which may, in turn, be extrapolated to Malta’s population (12+ years) by age and gender.
The audience survey’s dates of assessment comprised between Sunday 21st – Saturday 27th July 2024, both dates inclusive. The survey was conducted by M. FSADNI & Associates.
Research Methodology
For this audience survey wave, the survey sample comprised 2,100 completed interviews. A total of 300 interviews per day were conducted over 7 consecutive days with Maltese residents aged 12+ years, hailing from Malta’s six geographical regions (NSO, 2023).
The aggregate 2100-count audience survey sample produced statistically significant findings at a +/-2.13 confidence interval (margin of error) at a 95% confidence level.
The daily 300-count audience survey sample produced statistically significant findings at a +/-5.66 confidence interval (margin of error) at a 95% confidence level.
All interviews were conducted by CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviews), using a structured research instrument to compile the data.
The research findings for TV viewership and radio listenership were extrapolated to reflect Malta’s population. This was calculated on the most recent population statistics, as outlined by the National Statistics Office (NSO) in their recent publication “Census of Population and Housing 2021 Final Report, Volume 1” (NSO, 2023). For this extrapolation exercise, non-TV viewers and non-radio listeners were proportionately deducted from Malta’s population of individuals aged 12+ years (N=459,781).
Salient Research Findings
A synopsis of the salient research findings emanating from the audience survey now follows.
TV Viewership, Radio Listenership & Online Viewership – An Overview
- 85% of Maltese residents are TV viewers. Of these, 62% watch both local and foreign TV, 17% watch local TV stations only and 6% watch foreign TV stations only.
- 2 in 3 of Maltese residents are radio listeners (66.5%); this finding is observed across all age cohorts.
- 14% of Maltese residents watch online Maltese programmes/audiovisual content (solely produced for online portals).
A. TV Viewership
Favourite genre for local TV programmes
- News is the most favourite genre for local TV programmes, with 80% indicating this as one of their favourite genres. This genre was mentioned as one of the favourite genres across all seven age cohorts.
- Drama is the second most favourite genre, with 44% indicating this as one of their favourite genres for local TV programmes. This genre is significantly more popular amongst female TV viewers (66%) than male TV viewers (23%).
- Discussions and Current affairs is the third most favourite genre for local TV programmes, with 31% indicating this as one of their preferred genres.
Most Followed TV Stations
All of Malta’s TV Viewers were given the possibility of mentioning up to three TV stations they watched on the previous day. Out of a total of 1780 TV viewers, 20.8% of TV viewers across all age cohorts said that they did not watch any television on the previous day.
- TVM is the most followed TV station by 33.5% of all local TV viewers mentioning TVM as one of the three TV stations they watched on the previous day. TVM is, in fact, the most watched local station across all age cohorts and gender.
- ‘Foreign stations (any)’ is the second most followed TV station/s, with 20.7% of all local TV viewers having watched a foreign TV station on the previous day. This increase in ‘foreign stations’ audience share was largely contributed by the Olympics 2024 opening ceremony televised on Rai TV on Friday 26th July 2024.
- NET TV is third most followed TV station, with 18.4% of all TV viewers mentioning NET TV as one of the TV stations they watched on the previous day. NET TV is watched by all age cohorts aged 21+ years.
- ONE is the fourth most followed TV station, with 15.3% having watched this station on the previous day.
Exhibit I below depicts more details on the most followed TV stations.
Exhibit I – Most followed TV stations (Sunday to Saturday)
(Multiple-Response Q) (n=1780)
NOTE I: Respondents were given the possibility of mentioning up to 3 TV Stations which they had watched on the previous day. Hence, the percentages depicted in this table do NOT total up to 100%.
Exhibit 2A illustrates the most followed TV stations during Week 21st – 27th July 2024.
‘I did not watch any TV on previous day’ refers to TV viewers who did not watch TV
on the day of assessment during that particular week.
Note: TV stations not featured in the Exhibit above have a TV viewership of less than 0.1%
Between Sunday to Saturday.
Most Followed TV Timebands
- All TV Viewers (excluding TV viewers who did not watch TV on the date of assessment) were asked to indicate all timebands during which they watched the three mentioned TV stations (including foreign stations) on the previous day. The most followed TV timeband from Sunday to Saturday is:
- 20:00 - 20:30 (232,517 TV viewers)
Favourite Local TV Programme
- TVM News Bulletin is the most favourite local TV programme of 10.1% of all local TV viewers. This news bulletin was largely watched on station TVM and not on TVMnews+.
- Football matches (various) obtained 6.8% of the TV viewers’ preferences, followed by News Bulletin – ONE (5.7%) and News Bulletin – NET TV (4.6%).
- A high 43.1% of all TV viewers indicated that they do not have a favourite local TV programme being aired in this TV schedule.
Population Average Audience Share by Weekday and by Station
- From the daily TV viewership findings, the population average audience share by weekday and by station was drawn up. This daily average audience share has been derived by totalling the aggregate daily viewership obtained by each TV station and dividing this by the number of timeslots. This daily average audience share for each TV station has been presented in figures and percentages, depicted in Exhibits II and III below.
- TVM, NET TV and ONE obtained the highest daily average audience share on separate days of the week of assessment, obtaining the following daily average TV viewership and daily percentage average TV viewership respectively. %). ‘Foreign stations (various)’ is being excluded from this ‘local TV station’ weekly audience ranking.
- TVM obtained the highest daily average audience share on Monday (8,110 – 25.2%), Thursday (7,695 – 28.2%) and Sunday (6,290 – 17.1%).
- NET TV obtained the highest daily average audience share on Tuesday (8,429 – 24.6%) and Saturday (6,833 – 16.7%).
- ONE obtained the highest daily average audience share on Wednesday (5,588 – 18.6%) and Friday (5,971 – 17.9%).
Exhibit II – Q8 – TV - Population Average Audience Share By Weekday and By Station
Note: TV stations with ‘zero’ audience on a particular weekday in the Table above denotes
that their viewership (on that day) was too low to be captured.
Exhibit III – Q8 – TV – Percentage Average Audience Share By Weekday and By Station
Note: TV stations with ‘0%’ audience on a particular weekday in the Table above denotes that
their viewership (on that day) was too low to be captured.
Population Weekly Average Audience Share by TV Station
- The weekly average percentage audience share by TV Station may be derived from Exhibit III above. The local TV station with the highest weekly percentage average audience share is TVM standing at 18.7%, followed by NET TV (17.9%) and ONE (16.3%). ‘Foreign stations (various)’ is being excluded from this ‘local TV station’ weekly audience ranking. More detailed findings may be found in Exhibit IV below.
Exhibit IV – Weekly Average Percentage Audience Share by TV station
Note: % figures illustrated below are derived from Exhibit III above
Types of TV reception services used for watching TV
- 97.2% of all 1780 TV viewers, use ‘Paid Subscription (Melita/GO/Epic)’ as one of the reception services for watching TV. This is the most used reception service for watching TV across all age groups.
- 8.2% make use of ‘IPTV’ as one of the reception services, whilst 7.9% use the ‘Android Box’ and ‘Streaming on laptop/tablet/PC respectively.
- 1.9% use ‘free-to-air’ as one of the reception services for watching TV.
- Note: The survey respondents represent Maltese resident individuals aged 12+ years, who may not necessarily be fully knowledgeable on all the TV reception services used by their respective household and/or may not necessarily be their household’s decision-maker/co-decision-maker for same.
B. Radio Listenership
Most Followed Radio Stations
- All radio listeners (excluding radio listeners who did not listen to radio on the dates of assessment) were given the possibility of mentioning up to three radio stations they had listened to on the previous day. Out of a total of 1394 radio listeners, 11.7% did not listen to radio on the previous day.
- ONE Radio is the most followed radio station, with 14.3% of all radio listeners mentioning it as one of the three radio stations they had listened to on the previous day. Second came Calypso 101.8 with 12% of preferences and NET FM came third with 11.7%.
- Exhibit V below depicts more details on the most followed Radio stations.
Exhibit V – Q14 – Most followed Radio stations (Aggregate)
(Multiple-Response Q) (n= 1394)
Note: Respondents were given the possibility of mentioning up to 3 Radio Stations they had listened to
on the previous day. Hence, the percentages depicted in this Exhibit do NOT total up to 100%.