Camelia Pasandaran – The number of people watching television news programs and political talk shows has jumped in the past three months, monitoring company AGB Nielsen Media Research said on Tuesday. The firm attributed the rise to high levels of interest in both April's legislative elections and the upcoming presidential poll.
Andini Wijendaru, an AGB Nielsen communications executive, said that a survey of audience numbers for the January-March and April-June periods showed a 28 percent increase. Viewers are also watching these programs for longer periods of time, he said.
The viewing trends were measured in 10 major cities across the country. Andini said the company also noted that the increases were roughly the same for all stations surveyed.
The country's TV stations are now showing a combined average of nine hours of political talk shows a day, he said, up by two hours from earlier in the year.
Those shows receiving the highest audience share included "Presidential Options" and "In the Name of Citizens," both on tvOne, "Presidential Candidates Talk on the Law," on Global TV, and SCTV's "Barometer."
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) said on Tuesday that it had increased its monitoring of TV stations as it watched for any coverage of presidential candidates' campaigning that it considered unfair.
"We'll keep monitoring the TV programs to ensure that they have balanced coverage," KPI member Muhammad Izzul said.
He said the commission had already summoned representatives from several TV stations for giving priority to certain candidates. "On Monday, we summoned RCTI, Metro TV and TPI for airing coverage of some candidates' rallies for too long," he said.
Specifically, RCTI and TPI were called in for their coverage of a rally for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Malang, East Java. Metro TV was cited for its coverage of an event for Vice President Jusuf Kalla in Cilincing, North Jakarta.
Izzul said that all three stations had offered explanations to the KPI and vowed to provide equal amounts of broadcast time to each candidate in the future. "We will keep observing their programs," he said. "If they don't fulfill their commitments, then we will sanction them."
Such sanctions can range from warnings to the loss of broadcasting licences, a decision made by the Communication and Information Technology Ministry on the recommendation of the KPI.
"But the toughest sanction will only be given to serious violators. If it is just a small violation, we will only warn them," Izzul said, adding that the KPI was also monitoring talk shows.
"We are evaluating the opportunities for the candidates to appear in prime time on TV stations," he said.
"We urge all TV stations to balance out the opportunities for all candidates to appear on their programs." Izzul said the commission had found that some talk shows mighty be giving preferential treatment to certain candidates.
"Some have presented certain candidates but have missed others," he said. "But we'll wait until after the election to finish the evaluation and decide later whether it is necessary to sanction them or not."