Audiences spend two hours daily watching TV, three listening to radio

Audiences in Malta spend just under two hours daily watching television and almost three hours listening to the radio, figures released by the Broadcasting Authority show. 

The latest survey revealed that the average amount of hours that TV viewers spent watching television amounted to 1.97 hours every day. This was 10 minutes more than that of the previous assessment during the month of July 2016 (1.80 hours) and was only just also just ½ minute less than that registered for the same period last year in October 2016 (1.98 hours). 

Video killed the radio star

The national average of TV viewers was 0.3 hours higher than that registered over the same period last year, which was 1.32 hours, implying that there were more TV-viewers than last year. On average, the amount of persons watching television increased from an average of 240,800 in October 2015 to 249,000 this year.

Contrastingly, radio listeners decreased slightly, with an average of 187,000 persons, or 47.6% of the population 12 years of age or older, admitting to listening to the radio. Last year, the average was 191,200 persons, or 49.3%.

Bring on the drama

TVM remains the most popular station with 33.47%, followed by One (18.9%), and Net TV (9.7%).

Overall 66% of all viewers followed a local station while the other 34% followed a foreign station, with Mediaset Channels (13.4%), RAI channels (4.2%) and other stations (11.9%) being the most popular.

According to the study, drama programmes seem the most popular among TV viewers, garnering 49.5% of all preferences. This was followed by news (12%), and discussion programmes (7.1%).

The top three programmes who got the most mentions among respondents were  Strada Stretta (14.3%), followed by Ħbieb u Għedewwa (11.8%), both on TVM (9.5%), and Tereża (9.8%) on ONE.

As in other previous surveys, TV audiences tend to peak between 7:30pm and 10:00pm.  

Generation gap

On average, radio listeners spent a total of 2.97 hours each listening to their favourite radio station, the study found. This was eight minutes longer than that registered for the same month last year but four minutes less than that registered for the previous assessment period of July 2016. 

Bay Radio remained the most popular station, named by 20.4% of respondants, followed by ONE Radio (16.3%) and Radju Malta (11%). Bay Radio is popular with all those under the age of 50 whereas ONE Radio is popular with those who are above the age of 50.

Results reveal that while Bay Radio is the most popular station in Malta, its listeners spend an average of 1.51 hours tuned into the station whereas ONE Radio listeners spend 3.71 hours.