Television programs considered to be of good quality get poor ratings and a low share of viewers, according to a new survey released Thursday.

The survey, conducted from March to April, involved 191 educated television-lovers in major cities across the country.

The research was undertaken by the Science, Aesthetics and Technology (SET) Foundation in cooperation with the Tifa Foundation, the Habibie Center and the London School of Public Relations.

The respondents considered MetroTV's Kick Andy to be the highest-quality TV talk show (47.12 percent). SCTV's Liputan 6 Petang was considered the best daily news program (10.99 percent), TransTV's Si Bolang the best documentary (2.62 percent) and MetroTV's Metro Realitas the best weekly news program (2.9 percent).

The shows were judged according to criteria such as their informative content, social empathy, critical views, balance, factuality, objectivity and public interest.

But despite their quality, those four TV shows get low ratings and a low share of viewers, according to the latest survey by AGB-Nielsen Media Research.

Agus Sudibyo, public ratings chief researcher with the SET Foundation, said Kick Andy was only rated 1.2 and attracted 5.4 percent of viewers, while Liputan 6 Petang was rated 4.7 with a 17.3 percent share, Si Bolang was rated 1.3 with a 10 percent share and Metro Realitas was rated 0.5 with a 4.0 percent share of viewers.

"The survey shows quality has less influence on ratings and the share of viewers," he said.

Agus said that when the survey was conducted, AGB-Nielsen announced four TV shows with high ratings and a large share of viewers.

They were SCTV's soap operas Azizah and Cinta Bunga, Indosiar's variety show Super Mama and RCTI's soap opera Cahaya.

The survey also found most TV entertainment shows, including soap operas, variety shows and gossip shows, were of poor quality because they failed to increase social empathy, promote nonviolent and nonpornographic roles, explore relevant topics or provide suitable gender-oriented shows for children.

"Previously, we recognized AGB-Nielsen as the only company offering quantitative surveys. All television stations view its surveys as *godlike' because they can guide the way to profits," said Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) deputy chairperson Fetty Fajriati Miftach.

"As a result, we have a lot of poor quality TV shows, which tend to offer viewers sex, violence and mysticism."

She said the KPI had declared Cinta Bunga a "troubling" soap opera because it contained offensive language. (nkn)

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