Terrorist, Century, boost News TV watchers: Survey

A recent survey revealed that two news TV stations enjoyed a significant audience boost last month over the broadcasts of terrorist raids and the parliamentary plenary meeting on the Bank Century case.
 
AGB Nielsen Media Research recently released its study on news TV program audiences in March, taken from adult male audiences, over 40 years old, in 10 major cities; Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Semarang, Bandung, Makassar, Yogyakarta, Palembang, Denpasar and Banjarmasin.
 
The study showed that the daily average audience of news TV stations, TV One and Metro TV, in the month grew to 30,000 or 20 percent higher than in February.
 
AGB Nielsen public relations officer Andini Wijendaru said that the March 3 plenary meeting at the House of Representatives on the Bank Century case managed to boost news TV audiences to 59,000 people that day, almost double the daily average.
 
“A day earlier, when the plenary turned ugly, 33,000 people watched news TVs, or 10 percent higher thanMarch’s daily average,” she said.
 
The speech of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the plenary result on March 4 also surged news watchers to 43,000, 43 percent higher than the daily average.
 
The highest daily news TV audience was on March 9, when the police raided an Internet café in Pamulang, Tangerang, Banten. Among the three terrorist suspects shot dead was most-wanted Dulmatin.
 
“Between 6:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m. on the day, audience of news programs reached 78,000 people,” Andini said.
 
The report of President Yudhoyono’s speech in Australia in which he received praise from the Australian parliament and government, also contributed to the boost, Andini said.