Nearly a fourth of Maltese television viewers listed the news as their favourite programme in the latest audience assessment survey for July, released by the Broadcasting Authority on Tuesday.

According to the data, while 264,000 people, or 63.3 per cent of the population, followed television regularly last February, the number dropped to 250,000 (58.8 per cent) in July.

However, regular TV viewing had increased by 7.8 per cent (from 51 per cent) when compared to the same month last year.

The average number of hours spent watching television increased from 1.81 in February to 1.85 in July. Average viewing was 1.51 hours (February 1.30, July 2017: 0.90).

TVM attracted the largest share of television viewers (29.91 per cent) with approximately 104,000 viewers. It was followed by One (14.85 per cent); TVM2 (12.21 per cent); and Net TV (8.24 per cent).

A total 31.04 per cent followed a foreign television station.

Local and foreign news were the most favourite programme genre (24.5 per cent). Local drama programmes ranked second (15.9 per cent) while discussion and current affairs programmes ranked third (10.7 per cent).

Sport programmes ranked fourth (10.1 per cent) followed by cultural/educational programmes (8.7 per cent).

Analysed by gender, female preferences exceeded male preference for both local and foreign news (F:65.7 per cent; M:62.9 per cent) and drama (F:52.9 per cent; M:30.9 per cent) while male preferences slightly exceeded female preferences in discussion and current affairs programmes (M:28.2 per cent; F: 27.9 per cent).

Male preferences greatly exceeded female preferences in sports programmes (M:39 per cent; F:14 per cent) while female preferences greatly exceeded male preferences in cultural/educational programmes (F: 25.3 per cent; M: 20.2 per cent); light entertainment (F:22.4 per cent; M:17.1 per cent); and teleshopping (F:10.3 per cent; M:3 per cent).

The most common service for watching television is that of a paid subscription [91 per cent]; followed by internet-based services, such as an Android box (13.4 per cent); 4.1 per cent said that they only had a free-to-air service.

On the other hand, radio listening increased by 2.1 per cent. While in February 212,000 persons (aged 12 years and over) listened to radio regularly, in July this figure rose to 225,000 persons (February: 50.9 per cent; July: 53 per cent).

In July, radio listeners spent an average of 3.16 hours every day following their favourite radio station. This was 12 minutes more than in February (2.99hrs) and 15 minutes more than in the same month last year.

89.7 Bay attracted the largest amount of radio listeners (25.09 per cent), followed by One with 15.48 per cent; Vibe FM with 9.2 per cent; and Radju Malta (8.5 per cent).

89.7 Bay was the most followed station by those under 50 – with nearly 80 per cent of those aged between 12 and 20; nearly half of those aged between 21 and 30; and nearly a third of those aged between 31 and 50 following this station.

However, taking all audiences (the number of listeners and the amount of time spent) for all weekdays, One ranked first with 24.6 per cent of all audiences, followed by 89.7 Bay (15 per cent);

Calypso Radio (11.2 per cent); Net FM (8.6 per cent); Radju Malta (8.1 per cent); Vibe FM (7.2 per cent); RTK (5.9 per cent); Radju Marija (5.6 per cent); Smash Radio (5.1 per cent); Magic Malta (2.6 per cent); and community stations (1.9 per cent). The rest had less than 1 per cent of the audiences.

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