KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND PERFORMANCE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCAST PROGRAMMES
(FINANCIAL YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2012)
In the financial year ending 31 March 2012 (FY11), the following key performance indicators were applied to measure the effectiveness of public service broadcast (PSB) television programmes:
(I) Number of PSB television programme hours fulfilled9
(II) Average viewership of PSB television programmes.
(I) Number of PSB television programme hours fulfilled
In FY11, MDA required MediaCorp to telecast a minimum of 4,313 hours of (funded)
PSB television programmes across MediaCorp’s seven
free-to-air television (FTA TV)
channels. The requirement was fulfilled as follows:
| Min. no. of PSB hours required | Actual no. of PSB hours fulfilled by MediaCorp | ||
| Total | 4,313 | Total | 5,969 |
| Locally produced | 2,299 | Locally produced | 2,493 |
| Acquired10 | 2,014 | Acquired | 3,476 |
(II) Average viewership of PSB television programmes
Viewership targets for (funded and locally produced) PSB programmes are set by
television channel and genre, based on the channel’s target demographic. The
range of genres supported includes information, children’s programmes, arts/culture
and sports programmes, drama, variety and minority-language news.
Of the viewership targets11 set, the average percentage of targets met across the channels was 97%12. The total reach of these PSB programmes in FY11 was 88.2% or 4,254,000 viewers aged four years and above.
A summary of the average viewership of PSB programmes across channels in FY1113 is as follows:
| Channel | Target demographic | Channel descriptions/prime-time14 ratings in FY11 | Average prime-time ratings of local PSB programmes across genres | Total reach15 of local PSB programmes (by channel) |
| Channel 5 | P4+16 | 24-hour English entertainment channel targeting a mass audience with local productions, including news, and foreign acquired programmes. Average prime-time rating of 2.9% (143,000). | 2.8% (136,000) | 60.5% (2,917,000) |
| Channel 8 | P4+ | 24-hour Mandarin general entertainment channel targeting a mass audience with local productions, including news, and foreign acquired programmes. Average prime-time rating of 10.9% (528,000). | 11.7% (568,000) | 68.5 % (3,307,000) |
| Channel U | CUME P15+17 | Mandarin entertainment channel targeting youth and working professionals with local productions, including news, and foreign acquired programmes. Average prime-time rating of 3.8% (158,000). | 4% (160,000) | 55.4% (2,317,000) |
| Channel NewsAsia Singapore | CUME PMEB18 (above $5k) |
Special-interest news and information channel targeting working professionals via primarily locally produced content. Average prime-time rating of 1.5% (4,000). | 1.6% (4,000) | 58.1% (110,000) |
| okto | P4-1219; and P15+ | Special-interest channel with daytime/early evening timebelts for children and evening timebelt for youth/the local arts community. Offers a mix of locally produced and foreign acquired children’s, information and arts/culture programmes. Average prime-time rating of 4.7% (24,000) for the children’s belt and 0.2% (10,000) for the arts/culture belt. | • P4-12: 4.2% (21,000) • P15+: 0.3% (13,000) |
• P4-12: 67.1% (341,000) • P15+: 14.2% (593,000) |
| Suria | M4+20 | Malay-language general entertainment channel catering to the community with local productions and acquired programmes from the region. Average prime-time rating of 9.4% (59,000). | 11.4% (72,000) | 89.5% (562,000) |
| Vasantham | Ind4+21 | Tamil-language general entertainment channel catering to the Indian community with local and acquired productions from Indian markets. Average prime-time rating of 6.7% (32,000). | 7.4% (35,000) | 80.3% (376,000) |
Accumulated PSB reserves from unutilised RTV licence fees
The PSB reserves accumulated over the period FY03 to FY11 from unutilised RTV licence fees amounted to $53.7 million as at 31 March 2012.
9 Refers to the total number of locally produced and foreign acquired PSB television programmes fulfilled by MediaCorp against minimum PSB hours required by MDA for funding provided. Locally produced programmes are in-house productions by MediaCorp and outsourced productions by independent production companies.
10 Foreign acquired PSB programmes are supported to supplement the total provision of PSB content on special interest/ minority-language channels, accounting for about 7% of funding
allocation for PSB programmes on FTA TV.
11 Refers to ratings and reach targets. ‘Ratings’ measures the percentage (or number) of viewers watching a programme at any one point during a programme’s telecast. ‘Reach’ is the total
percentage (or number) of unduplicated individuals who tune in to a TV programme over a given time period (based on the Kantar Media Television Audience Measurement system).
12 97% is a weighted average that takes into account the degree to which a target is met as well as the proportion of each genre and channel’s PSB programme output.
13 The average viewership for FY11 (i.e. April 2011 to March 2012) is measured based on the viewership spanning two calendar years, 2011 and 2012, due to the period covered.
14 Channels’ prime time refers to 7pm-11pm for Channels 5, 8, U, CNA, Suria and Vasantham and weekdays 6.30pm-8.30pm/weekends 9am-1pm for okto’s kids’ belt, and weekdays
10pm-11pm/weekends 10pm-12mn for okto’s info/arts belt. This would include PSB-funded and non-funded programmes.
15 Based on whole-day viewing.
16 ‘P4+’ refers to people aged 4 and above (where the 2011 and 2012 potential viewer base is 4,825,000 and 4,947,000, respectively)
17 ‘CUME’ refers to the cumulative figure of the ratings of a programme telecast across one week.’P15+’ refers to viewers aged 15 years and above (P15+ viewer base in 2011 and 2012 at
4,179,000 and 4,300,000, respectively).
18 ‘PMEB (above $5k)’ refers to professionals, managers, executives and businessmen with monthly incomes of $5,000 and above (2011 and 2012 viewer base at 203,000 and 285,000,
respectively).
19 ‘P4-12’ refers to people aged 4 to 12 years (2011 and 2012 viewer base at 506,000 and 517,000, respectively).
20 ‘M4+’ refers to Malays aged 4 years and above (2011 and 2012 potential viewer base at 628,000 and 644,000, respectively)
21 ‘Ind 4’ refers to Indians aged 4 and above (2011 and 2012 potential viewer base at 468,000 and 480,000, respectively)