DILI, 03 august 2022 (TATOLI) – The Secretary of State for Media (SECOMS) launched the Preliminary Result of the News Consumption Survey in Timor-Leste.
“The launching of the preliminary result of this six-month (january-june) news consumption survey is crucial to help our national media to improve their performances to serve the public with credible information,” Secretary of State for Communications, Merício Juvinal dos Reis ‘Akara’ made comments during the launching of the preliminary survey, at the Palace of Government, on wednesday.
He said the survey will provide valuable data to the national media to identify their strength and weakness: “We must know what kind of information the public need and want from our national media.”
“Once, you know the public need for information, it helps media to produce credible news stories which are relevant and vital for the national development,” Akara said.
Carsiliano Oliveira, the team leader of the survey said the six-month survey aimed to understand the public news preference.
All of the respondents of the survey were between 17 and 30, who have access to various types of news sources in the country – print, TV, radio, and new media or the internet.
The survey found that around 78% of the respondents have access to information, of which around 47% use Facebook, meanwhile TV and Radio accounted for 21%.
According to the survey, 38% of the respondents read Diario Nasional newspaper, 22% read Timor Post, 10% read Suara Timor Lorosa’e, 13% read Independent, and Dili Post 12%.
More than half of the respondents (55.67%) prefer listening to State media radio (RTTL), meanwhile, 21% listen to community radio, 3.31% listen to Radio Timor Kmanek, 2.29% listen to Radio Liberdade, 4.14% listen to Radio Maubere, 10.85% listen to GMN Radio and 2.46% listen to Radio Parlamentu Nasional.
When asked about watching TV, 50% prefer watching RTTL, while 30% like GMN-TV, STL-TV is 2.46%, TV Maubere 1.78%, TVE 4.49%, Gardamor TV 0.93%, and foreign channels accounted for 9.66%.
In addition, when it comes to reading the online news, 31.53% of respondents prefer TATOLI, meanwhile, 5.51% reads Tempo Timor, STL 4.83%, GMN 28.56%, Timor Post 4.83%, and RTTL 24.57%.
The survey found that 37.37% of the respondents prefer reading, watching, and listening to political news stories to other topics.
Virgilio da Silva Guterres thanked SECOMS for conducting such a survey: “It’s important to improve the quality of the news stories produced by these national media.”
Journalist: Arminda Fonseca
Editor: Julia Chatarina/ Nelia Borges
Translation: Filomeno Martins
