Television viewing has decreased by 1.6 per cent between January and March this year when compared to previous periods assessed, according to the figures issued by the Broadcasting Authority.

The BA’s continuous radio and television audience assessment showed that fewer people are watching television, even though the percentage of those who are still ranks at 95.5.

TVM was listed as the station of choice in three districts – the northern district, the western district and, together with Super One TV, in the northern harbour district. In the south eastern district respondents favoured Super One TV while in the southern harbour Super One TV ranked first together with Canale 5 and Italia 1, and in the northern harbour with TVM and Canale 5.

Of all those interviewed, 31.9 per cent claimed they had no particular favourite channel. Among all respondents, TVM ranked first with 19.4 per cent followed by Super One TV with 16.1 per cent, Canale 5 with 15 per cent and Italia 1 with 13.6 per cent.

In the radio portion of the survey, Super One Radio was listed as the top choice with 14.8 per cent, followed by Radju Malta and Bay Radio, with 14.3 and 12.2 per cent respectively. Radio 101 and Radju Marija both registered at 10.1 per cent as favourite station while RTK was chosen by 9.3 of the respondents. 19.4 of the people interviewed declared they do not favour any radio station particularly.

Super One Radio was chosen as favourite in three districts, with Radio 101 in the southern harbour, and with Bay Radio in the south east. RTK got first preference in the northern district while Radju Marija was the top choice for people in the western district.

30 per cent of the respondents said they do not listen to the radio while 58.6 per cent of the 70 per cent that do listen claimed to only listen to local radio stations. The number of people that listen to both local and foreign stations was registered at 11.4 per cent.

In both radio and television sectors, news and current affairs programmes ranked highest while musical programmes were second choice on radio and the weather was favoured by those watching television.

Men favoured sports programmes more than women both on radio and television – on the radio 71.7 of men listen to these shows, compared to 28.3 per cent of women while on television 64.6 per cent of men watch sports, compared to 26.9 per cent of women.

The survey was conducted through telephone interviews representative of the whole population.