The average number of hours that viewers spent watching television reached 1.55hrs every day in October. This was 1’12” less than the previous assessment during the month of July [1.57hrs], the Broadcasting Authority said.
When this average was computed over the whole population the national average rose from 0.90hrs for July to 1.11hrs for October 2017.
"This means that although television viewing on average was maintained there were more consumers watching television," the BA said.
During October, an average of 244,000 persons, or 64.7% of the population aged 16 years and over followed at least one TV station. This represented an increase of 13.7% over that of July [51.0%; ≈191,000 persons].
Radio listeners spent an average of 2.79hrs listening to their radio set. Compared to the previous assessment of July 2017 [2.91hrs] this was 7’12” less. Comparing the national average for October [1.68hrs] with that of the previous assessment of July [1.41hrs] this was 16’12” higher; and the number of persons who followed a radio station increased by 7.2% from 178,000 for July to 207,000 in October.
The data was collected by the National Statistics Office during October. A sample of 1,240 was collected with the youngest interviewed being 16 years old while the eldest person contacted was 95 years old.
TV audience reach
The BA said TVM remained the most popular station with 38% followed by One [16.8%] and Net TV [9.4%]. Overall 67.3% of all viewers followed a local station while the other 32.7% followed a foreign station.
As in other previous surveys, TV audiences peaked between 7.30pm and 10pm.
Local and foreign nNews were the most followed programme genre [26.3%] followed by local drama programmes [15.6%], while discussion and current affairs programmes ranked third [13.0%].
More men than women preferred sports and documentaries. Women preferred drama, light entertainment, religious programmes and teleshopping [+2.2%].
Radio audiences
Bay Radio remained the most popular station with 25.1% of all radio listeners followed by One Radio [14.8%] and Vibe FM [11.2%].
Bay Radio was the most followed station by all those under fifty years old. One Radio was popular with those who were above the age of 50