Study reveals interesting trends in summer audiences

T.V.M. has once again, in a space of less than six months, emerged as the television station with the largest number of viewers, while Super One radio has the largest number of listeners.

Impressive results were registered by Radju Malta, which has now become the station with the second largest audience. The community radio station with the largest audience from among such stations is Eden Radio.

These facts emerge from a Misco International survey conducted between July 10 and 16. A sample of 700 participants aged 12 and older took part in the survey, which was conducted through telephone interviews. A copy of the survey was obtained by The Sunday Times.

Sources close to the industry told The Sunday Times that this is probably the first published survey that not only gives information about TV and radio summer audiences, but also about community radio stations.

When asked which station they listened to the previous day for at least 15 minutes, 18.4% of participants opted for Super One Radio. This would amount to an audience of 49,600.

Radju Malta is second with 15% of the audience amounting to 40,500 listeners. RTK and Radio 101 share third place with 14.2%. Just under a seventh said that they did not listen to radio.

Among the community stations, the Misco survey found almost 7,000 people, or 2.7% of the sample, said they listened to a community station. The largest audience (1.4%) was registered by Eden Radio, which is run by the Eden Foundation, and the religious station Radju Maria was second with 0.7%.

While Eden Radio registers its peak audience in the 18-24 age bracket, Radju Maria is stronger with an older audience.

Different national stations have different audience characteristics. RTK is the station with the largest audience in the AB socio-economic group. Bay Radio is the largest station in the 18-34 age bracket.

Radio 106.6, which in its present format is only 18 months old, is the station with the largest audience in the 12-17 age bracket.

Radju Malta is the most preferred station for cultural programmes. It is followed by Super One Radio which, in turn, is the most popular for discussion programmes. RTK is the most popular for women's programmes; but it is closely followed by Super One and Radju Malta.

Super One, followed by Radio 101, tops the sports category. Radju Malta follows Super One in the local news category.

TVM is the station with the largest audience. According to the Misco International survey, 47% or 149,700 viewers said that they watched it on the previous day. It was followed by Mediaset (28.9%), Super One (27.7%) and NET (26.7%). Max Plus registered 2.3% of the audience.

TV viewing is considered to go down during the summer months. In fact, while surveys held during the other months of the year register only small percentages of people who do not watch TV, this survey found that 12% did not watch TV on the previous day.

Over 52% of respondents consider the news on TVM as the most objective and impartial. This is followed by Super One's 23.7% and Net TV's 16.9%.

This positive perception of TVM's news bulletin is also translated in the actual figure of viewers. When asked on which local station did you watch the news yesterday these were the answers: TVM 48.8%; Super One 27.8% and Net: 27%. The audience for the news bulletin on TVM is 140,000.

TVM is considered to be the station with the best discussions/talk shows, with 41.5% choosing it for this genre, in contrast to the 22% choosing Super One. On the other hand TVM loses to Super One when it comes to Maltese productions. Super One registered 40.3% of the respondents compared to TVM's 33.2% and Net TV's 13.6%.