Net TV has halved its popularity since 2007, while One TV has maintained a steady 20 per cent audience share, according to the latest statistics released by the Broadcasting Authority.

On the other hand, leader TVM has expanded its audience by 10 per cent over the third quarter of 2008, coming in with a total 34.7 per cent audience share.

Although Net TV usually places fourth in the popularity rankings after TVM, One TV and "other TV stations", it has now been overtaken by Canale 5 and consequently ranks fifth.

When it comes to radio audiences, Bay Radio has reclaimed its lead, followed closely by One Radio and Calypso, which all saw increases since the survey was carried out in 2007.

Between July and September 2008, One Radio was leading with 19 per cent of the audience share but as its popularity dropped to 16 per cent, Bay managed to overtake it by less than half a percentage point.

The survey also found that 47.6 per cent of those interviewed said they did not listen to the radio, while 24.4 per cent did not watch television.

Just 10.7 per cent of interviewees said they regularly watched teleshopping programmes and only 8.6 per cent of these watched them on ITV - the local station dedicated to teleshopping. The majority preferred to watch teleshopping on One TV and Smash.

As was expected, digital television systems continued to increase in popularity, with 42.9 per cent of respondents saying their received television broadcasts digitally. This has caused the steady decline of analogue aerial and cable systems, which reduced by half since 2006.

The full report covering October to December is available at www.ba-malta.org/audience.