Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 20/12/2021
Viewing figures do not reflect the importance of public service broadcasting; its importance is reflected in the way it engages with viewers as citizens.
“Any ideas on how to reach the 250,000 viewers of Odmevi that you have lost over the years?” tweeted Alenka Jeraj, Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) member of parliament, on 26 November. She was responding to a tweet by Odmevi presenter Igor E. Bergant, in which he wondered if the official Twitter account of RTV Slovenija, Slovenian national public broadcasting organization that operates both radio and television stations, “is now apparently being used to propagate satire in the style of the late Soviet Union.”
The SDS parliamentary group told Razkrinkavanje.si that in her tweet Alenka Jeraj had been referring to a statement by the acting director of Televizija Slovenija, Valentin Areh. According to their interpretation, Areh had said that since 2003 Odmevi and Dnevnik news programs had lost 250,000, or half, of their formerly loyal viewers.
On 26 November, Areh was responding to a statement from the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ZRC SAZU in support of the TV Slovenija news program staff who were critical of the then-announced changes to the 2022 program production plan (PPN). The PPN, which, among other changes, foresees the cancellation of the foreign policy program Globus and the shortening of the news programs Prvi Dnevnik and Odmevi, was approved by the program council of RTV Slovenija on 29 November.
In his statement, the acting director wrote, among other things, that this year TV Slovenija’s two most important programs, Dnevnik and Odmevi, had had record-low viewing figures and that since 2003 they had lost “as many as 250,000 viewers, or half of the share of total viewers in front of television screens.”
This does not mean half of the once loyal viewers, as characterized by SDS, but half of the share of all viewers in front of television screens.
According to AGB Nielsen data provided to Razkrinkavanje.si by RTV Slovenija, an average of 447,600 viewers over the age of four watched television programmes between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. in November 2021.
On average, just over 222,000 viewers, or 11.8%, watched Dnevnik in 2003, the annual report of RTV Slovenija for that year shows, while Odmevi had a little over 189,000 viewers, or 10.1%. In total, the two programs were watched by an average of slightly over 411,000 viewers.
According to RTV Slovenija data, Odmevi and Dnevnik were watched by an average of just under 244,000 viewers between January and the end of November of this year, or a little over 168,000 fewer than in 2003. Since then, viewing figures for the two news programs have fallen by 40.8 %, but not by 250,000 viewers, as tweeted by Jeraj.
This year, up to and including November, the average viewership of Odmevi has been almost 5% and the average viewership of Dnevnik 7.9%. In addition, Areh compared data from January to the end of November of this year with data for the entire year 2003.
Viewing figures of television news programs are declining worldwide
In his response to the statement by ZRC SAZU, Areh also stressed the high viewing figures of rival news programs: “Meanwhile, rival news programs 24UR and 24UR Zvečer of the commercial broadcaster Pop TV are enjoying record viewership.”
Igor Vobič, professor of journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, warned against parochial evaluations of the importance of public service broadcasting “solely through the prism of traditional TV viewing figures.” In the digital age, the importance of public broadcasting is not reflected in ratings developed by commercial broadcasters, but in engagement with viewers as citizens, which editorial boards judiciously tailor to different groups.
Vobič explained that a number of analyses show an international trend of declining viewing figures, especially of television news programs and especially among young people. He cited an analysis by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford from 2016, when this trend had already been detected. The analysis also found that more and more people are getting their information from online videos, often on-demand and via mobile devices.
According to Vobič, the changes to RTV Slovenija’s program production plan do not tackle these long-term challenges, but rather foresee shortenings, cancellations and moving of programs, as well as programming changes to the second channel of TV Slovenija, portending an intensification of the ratings battle, which is typical especially of commercial media.
The claim that TV Slovenija news programs Odmevi and Dnevnik have lost 250,000 viewers since 2003 is false.
