An audience assessment survey by the Broadcasting Authority has found a 1% drop in TV viewership during October compared to the same month in the previous year.

TVM continued to lead the local stations, followed by One TV.

On the other hand, radio following increased by 2.1%.

89.7 Bay attracted the largest number of radio listeners by popularity [22.39%] followed by One Radio with 17.61%, Vibe FM with 10.6%and Radju Malta [9.82%].

89.7 Bay was the most followed station by all those under 50 years old – with nearly 74.6% of 12-20 year olds; more than a third of 21-30 year olds [38.52%]; and 29.33% of all 31-50 year olds.

On the other hand, One Radio was the most followed station by all those over 50 years old – with just below a third [32.97%] of all 51-70 year olds and just above a quarter of all 71+ year olds [26.4%] following this station.

When assessed by listenership (which takes into consideration the amount of time that each listener spent following a particular station) One Radio ranked first with 28.4% followed by 89.7 Bay; Calypso Radio; Radju Malta; Radju Marija ; Vibe FM; Net FM; RTK; Magic Malta; XFM and Campus FM.

The BA said 40 daily questionnaires were compiled by the NSO giving a total sample of 1,240 respondents with the youngest being 12-year-olds. 

As many as 274,000 persons (aged 12 years and over), or 60.7% of the population followed television regularly during October 2018. This was an increase of 4.9%  over the previous assessment in July and down by 1.0% over October 2017. However, the assessment of October 2017 did not include 12-15-year-olds.

The average number of hours spent watching television was 1.84hrs per viewer.  

Local and foreign news were the most popular programmes [26.3%], followed by drama [16.4%]. Discussion and current affairs programmes ranked third [11.1%]; followed by cultural/eductional programmes [8.4%] and sport programmes [18.2%].