Study shows strong demand for Maltese-dubbed films

Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech

Study shows strong demand for Maltese-dubbed films
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=217919

The quality of children's and sports programmes on TV stations needs to be improved, according to an audience survey, which also found that 66 per cent of respondents would rather watch foreign programmes dubbed in Maltese and 67 per cent would like more foreign programmes.

No local TV stations was considered to be the best for the genres of children's programmes and sports. In the case of children's programmes, an overwhelming 855 respondents out of the sample of 1,050 said no local TV stations could be considered the best while 752 said none of them could be considered the best for sports.With regard to good quality, children's programmes in Maltese and reality shows ranked lowest in the list of preferences, registering 19 per cent and 28 per cent respectively of the whole sample.

The independent survey, commissioned by the Tourism and Culture Ministry, under whose umbrella the audio-visual sector falls, was carried out by Ernst & Young.
It was aimed at finding out audience perceptions of local TV productions and the best stations for different local productions, among other things.The findings showed that TVM was the station most watched every day of the week, except for Monday, when Net TV took over, probably due to the Maltese series Santa Monika. TVM peaked strongly on Friday because of the programme Xarabank.

Indeed, the most watched TV programme was Xarabank, with an estimated viewership of 119,000. It was followed by Bondì+ and Tista' Tkun Int, with an estimated 106,000 viewers, and Showtime with 104,000. In the case of news bulletins, TVM also came first with an estimated 92,000 viewers, followed by Net News (65,000) and One News (50,000).
Xarabank also topped the list of high quality programmes (31 per cent of respondents), followed by Tista' Tkun Int (20 per cent) and Santa Monika (15 per cent).But as many as 17 per cent of respondents were unable to name a single programme of quality and 10 per cent were unable to mention two.

As for the dubbing of films into Maltese, the category of the semi-skilled and unskilled worker, or those dependent on social benefits, had the largest percentage (81 per cent) of those making this request.

Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said that, where this was technically possible, dubbing could be done, for example in the case of documentaries. But the technology to dub a movie, synchronising the words with the lip movement, was not available.

The audience survey also delved into radio listeners per day, with results showing that over half the respondents, did not listen to any station. Of those who did, Super One had the most listeners (91 out of the 1,050 sample), followed by Calypso/101.8 and Radju Malta. With regard to cinema, the survey showed that the majority of respondents (64 per cent) last frequented the cinema over two years ago, and that more women than men watched movies at cinemas.

It was on the basis of this study that the directives for PBS Ltd on how the funds of the extended public service obligation (EPSO) should be spent on different programme genres during the October 2006 to June 2007 schedule were drafted, Dr Zammit Dimech said.
The EPSO covers those genres that are not commercially viable and include children, current affairs, drama and culture programmes, to name a few. They are eligible to an allocation of Lm500,000. The directives would be forwarded to PBS Ltd in the coming days, he continued, adding that the dialogue with independent producers would continue, while focus groups were analysing the findings.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the independent producers played an important role in the building of Malta's audio-visual industry.