Bad ratings for HRT’s main evening news programme.
“Our main evening news are seen every day by almost 425,000 people, or 10.5 percent of all Croatian citizens, and these figures are sometimes even higher”, announced the Croatian Radio Television (HRT) at the beginning of February this year, reports Index.hr on May 4, 2016.
Now, just three months later, the figures are substantially lower. HRT admits that the number of viewers has decreased. “The main evening news in April were seen by an average of 7.2 percent of the general population, or a little less than 300,000 viewers. This is an average audience for all 30 broadcasts in April”, announced the HRT today.
For example, according to the official HRT data, the main evening news on Sunday, May 1, were seen by 9.1 percent of the general population, which is about 370,000 people. On Monday, 2 May, the news were seen by 7.4 percent of the general population, or about 300,000 people. HRT added that the figures change daily and that with the warmer weather all TV programmes experience a drop in viewing figures.
Statistics for competing news broadcasts on other television stations show there are major differences in viewing figures. For example, on Monday, 2 May, HRT’s news had 66,485 viewers in the target group aged 18-49, while Nova TV’s evening news had almost twice as many viewers (120,483). RTL’s late evening news, which is broadcast much later in the evening, also had almost twice as many viewers (119,000).
The day before, on Sunday, the HRT main evening news had share in the viewership of only 11.9 percent, which was far below Nova TV (32.6), RTL late evening news (22.4) and RTL main evening news (29.7).
In the over 40 age group, HRT’s main evening news is fighting for the second place with RTL. Last week, HRT had an average rating of 8.2, and was at second place. The leader was Nova TV (14.9), while RTL was third (7.4).
In its recent statement on what it called purges on HRT, the Croatian Journalists’ Society said that “ratings of HRT programmes, especially the most important news broadcasts, have decreased significantly, according to official data which HRT management is hiding”.
