TVM, Bay Radio rule airwaves

The total number of radio listeners decreased by 4.9% over the previous summer period of July-September 2011 and by 3.34% over the period Oct-Dec 2010, the Broadcasting Authority said in its Audience Assessment for the broadcasting quarter October-December 2011.

Bay Radio has maintained the highest percentage of radio listeners increasing its share by 0.66% [at 20.42%] over the same period of the year 2010 [19.76%] and which is also 0.01% less than that of the previous quarter.

Similarly, ONE Radio registered an increase of 1.4% [at 13.68%] over the same period of 2010 [12.28%] and an increase of 0.68% over the previous quarter of July-September 2011. On the other hand, Radju Malta has attain the third most largest share at 10.88% which was 4.08% higher than that obtained for the same period last year and which was 2.26% higher than the previous summer quarter of 2011.

Although Bay Radio attracted the highest number of listeners, the listeners of ONE Radio spent more time listening to their station than those attracted by Bay Radio [Bay: 2.15 hrs / ONE: 4.31 hrs].

Overall, from Monday to Sunday, ONE Radio attained the highest daily average of listeners [%: 1.509%; N: 5,596] on Saturdays which was also the highest average amount of listeners that logged on to a particular station on any day. This was followed by Bay Radio [%: 1.480%; N: 5,487] which was also the highest average amount for Wednesdays.

In fact, ONE Radio got the highest averages of listeners among all stations on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays while Bay Radio got the highest averages for Wednesdays and Thursdays. Radju Malta got the third highest average weekday percentage of 1.138% with its highest on Mondays at an average of 4,220 listeners.

On the other hand, peak audiences differ slightly. While ONE Radio attained its highest peak of 6.668% of all listeners for Saturday at 11:30 am; Calypso Radio attracted the second highest audience of 5.189% for all the listeners on Wednesday at 9:00 am; while Bay Radio attracted the highest peak of audiences at 4.298% for Thursdays between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm.

Television

The number of television viewers has increased by 4.97% over the previous period of July-September 2011 and was 1.923% lower than that registered for the same period the previous year.

The largest movement registered over the previous period was that in those who stated that they did not watch TV the previous day: a decrease of 5.621% to 23.996%.

TVM has maintained its prime position throughout increasing the number of viewers over the same broadcasting period of 2010 by 6.06%. The same applies to the other two main local stations [ONE and Net TV] with ONE [16.08%] increasing its percentage number of viewers by 0.87% while Net TV [6.83%] lost 0.48% over the same period last year.S

ince 2007 TVM has had high seasonal fluctuations losing up to 10% of its viewers to other stations during the summer months.

For this broadcasting season the three main local stations have all increased their number of viewers over the previous quarter of July-September 2011; the largest increase being registered by TVM with 13.05%; ONE with 2.68%; and Net TV with 1.0%.

When "all local stations" and "all foreign stations" are grouped, it can be clearly seen that audiences prefer more local broadcasting stations than foreign stations.

However, this was not always constant as total foreign stations sometimes exceeded total local stations especially during the summer months.

The total effective TV hours spent by consumers for this period stands at 2.45 hours which was 15 minutes higher than that registered during the previous summer quarter and 12 minutes higher than that for the same period last year.

Taking the total number of hours of TV viewing over the total sample of people interviewed, the national average hours of TV viewing consumed stands at 1.63 hours every day.

Overall, from Monday to Sunday, TVM attained the highest daily average of viewers for all the days from all the broadcasting stations with its highest average being that of Monday [%: 3.186%] followed by those for Sundays [%: 3.182%].

On the other hand, the peak audiences of TVM differ. The highest amount of viewers attained by TVM was that for Tuesday with 23.563% [N: 89,099 at 8:30 pm] followed by those on Fridays with 21.64% [N: 82,426 at 9:00 pm] and those of Thursdays with 19.423% [N: 72,593 at 9:00 pm].