Majority shun political broadcasts on television

More than half the number of respondents in the latest Broadcasting Authority survey said they did not watch political broadcasts on television.

Meanwhile, Xarabank has once again been voted the most popular TV programme in Malta, with some 174,000 people (equivalent to about 55 per cent of viewers) saying they watched the programme.

Details of the survey were presented by its author, Prof. Mario Vassallo, at the BA offices in Blata l-Bajda.

The survey was carried out among a sample of 1,001 people between April 1 and April 8.

This is the first time the study was carried out during the second quarter of the year, and it was therefore difficult to draw comparisons with last year`s figures.

Super 1 Radio remains the most popular radio station with 22.5 per cent. It is followed by RTK (17 per cent), Radio Malta (12 per cent) Radio 101 (11 per cent) and Bay Radio (10.8 per cent).

Asked which was the `best` radio station on the airwaves, respondents once again chose Super 1, followed by RTK and Bay Radio.

A total of 70.8 per cent said they listened to radio regularly, with 33.4 per cent saying they tuned in between four and nine hours a day.

Nevertheless, radio audiences were actually declining in absolute size.

The survey also reveals a nation of TV addicts: a third of respondents said they watched two hours of television a day, while another 28 per cent said they watched more than three hours of TV a day. Just 2.6 per cent said they never watched television.

Prof. Vassallo said the statistics of TV viewership were extremely high compared with other countries.

The survey also gives the audience share for TV in three time-bands.

From 6 a.m. to noon, the most popular station is TVM (32 per cent), followed by the satellite channels (21 per cent), the Mediaset channels (13.9 per cent), Rai (7.8 per cent) and Max Plus (6.8 per cent).

Between noon and 7 p.m., the Maltese tune in mostly to the satellite channels (20 per cent), followed closely by the Mediaset channels (19 per cent), Super 1 (15 per cent), Net TV (14 per cent), and TVM (11.1 per cent).

In the evening, from 7 p.m. till midnight, TVM comes top (31.5 per cent), followed by Super 1 (20.5 per cent), the Mediaset channels (16.2 per cent), the satellite channels (12.1 per cent), and Net TV (10.1 per cent). The evening news bulletins are very popular on all three main local TV stations.

In the week in question, Net TV registered its biggest audience share on Sunday night, Super 1 and Max Plus on Thursdays, while the Mediaset viewership shot up on Wednesday thanks to the screening of the UEFA Champions league matches.

The survey shows that TV morning and afternoon audiences were on the increase, with evening audiences going down marginally.

A total of 55.6 per cent said they did not watch the political broadcasts.

Of the total respondents, 63 per cent said they were connected to Cable TV. A total of 15.5 per cent said they had a satellite system, up from the 12.7 per cent in the last survey carried out in October.

Prof. Vassallo said it was becoming increasingly clear that more and more audiences were opting for a particular programme rather than a television station.

This could be interpreted from the overwhelming number of people who chose Xarabank as their preferred TV programme.