More men than women follow news and sports on TV, while more women watch drama, religious programmes, teleshopping, light entertainment and cultural/education programmes, a survey conducted for the Broadcasting Authority has shown.

Respondents were asked what type of programme they like to watch on local television. Local and Foreign News were the most favourite programme genre [65.0%] followed by local drama programmes [42.2%], while discussion and current affairs programmes ranked third [29.3%].

Men exceeded women in just two categories – local and foreign news [+7.8%] and sports [+22.5%]; women exceeded men in drama [+20.4%], religious programmes [+8.3%], light entertainment [+6.2%], teleshopping [+5.4%], cultural/ educational programmes [+4.7%], and children’s programmes [+1.6%].

The Broadcasting Authority said TVM remains the most popular station with 38.6%, followed by ONE [17.9%], and Net TV [11.3%]. Overall 71.9% of all viewers followed a local station while the other 28.1% followed a foreign station with Mediaset Channels [9.73%], RAI channels [7.04%] and other stations [6.5%] being the most popular stations.

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

RADIO

The Broadcasting Authority said Bay Radio remains the most popular station with 17.8% of all radio listeners followed by ONE Radio [16.8%] and Vibe FM [10.6%]. 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.

On average radio listeners spent a total of 3.17hrs each listening to their favourite radio station. This was 0.68hrs [41 minutes] higher than that registered for the same month last year in February 2016 [2.49hrs] and was 0.20hrs [12 minutes] higher than that registered for the previous assessment period of October 2016 [2.97hrs].

On a national basis over the whole of the population aged 16 years and over, the national average of radio listening amounts to 1.69hrs every person.

See the full survey here