Jakarta – A recent survey by the AGB Nielsen Media Research has disclosed that the live-airing of the voice recording of an alleged plot to fabricate criminal cases against the leaders of the antigraft body has boosted news TV ratings, higher than that during the airing of the July bombings in Jakarta.
On Tuesday, at least two news TV stations – TV One and Metro TV – aired live from the Constitutional Court (MK) the hearing of judicial review of an article in the 2002 law on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
During the hearing, the recording containing conversations between several police investigators, Attorney General Offi ce's officials, and the younger brother of KPK's graft fugitive Anggoro Widjojo, Anggodo Widjojo, was heard.
AGB Nielsen head of marketing service Christina Afendy said Thursday that the two news TVs enjoyed up to 279 percent increase of viewers aged above five during the airing.
According to the survey, which was conducted in Indonesia's 10 major cities, news TV watchers hit 729,000 people between 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. "The peak was between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., the viewers of the two TVs reached 914,000 people on the average," she said.
As a result, viewers of non-news TV stations dropped during the time. "Viewer shares of non-news TVs dropped to 82 percent from 91 percent the day earlier," she added.
News TV stations enjoyed 15 percent of viewers shares on the day, up from 6 percent on the previous day.
The survey also showed that the viewers of news TVs tuned into television sets for 1 hour 41 minutes that day. "The day before, it was only 32 minutes," Christina said. She added that the average watching TV duration of general viewers above five years old was normally only 42 minutes.
The news TV ratings during the airing of the hearing at the MK were even higher than the ratings of both TVs during the day of the twinblasts at Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in July. AGB Nielsen recorded that only around 416,000 viewers tuned into news programs on the day of the bombings.
"Most of TV viewers who watched the MK hearing were males aged above 40 years with middle-up sosio-economy class level," Christina said.
The survey also revealed that TV One's Kabar Petang was the most viewed news TV program on the day when the hearing at MK was aired, with 104,000 viewers and 35.9 percent shares.
At the second place was TV One's Breaking News with 69,000 viewers (40 percent) followed by RCTI's Seputar Indonesia with 39,000 viewers (19.4 percent).
TV One's news broadcaster competitor, Metro TV, stood at the sixth place with 21,000 viewers and 11.7 percent shares, worse than Indosiar's Info Utama and Trans TV's Reportase Sore.
Standing at the bottom of the list was Trans7's Redaksi Sore which was watched by only 15,000 people, giving the program a 7.5 percent of viewers shares. (bbs)