Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1541835
IN a world where our mobile phones tell us how many steps we've walked and our cars nag us for drifting too close to the pavement, Malta has managed to uncover a breath-taking new frontier of technological inno- vation—the 300-phone-call TV audience survey. Yes, while GO and Melita qui- etly collect real-time viewing information from their set-top boxes, sometimes every 15 min- utes, our broadcasting land- scape has instead been rocked by the profound revelation that a daily sample roughly the size of three busloads of people is all it takes to determine which TV station Malta loves most. Move aside big data; make way for 1990s-style enlightenment. But let us be fair. The Broad- casting Authority is merely the client, so any spin that the Nationalist Party is trying to weave that ONE TV is attack- ing the authority is of a nature that would be better spread on agricultural land. The true ge- nius here is the tenderer who clinched the job on the strength of one truly outstanding quali- ty—being the cheapest. At €4 per call, paid annually over seven years for a total of €85,000, one must admire the business model. Some com- panies pursue innovation, or excellence, but only the bold pursue the noble art of subcon- tracting and making money off the 1990s. This triumphant contractor is none other than M. Fsad- ni & Associates, whose name was recently encountered not in a research paper, but in this year's Government Gazette No. 21,396. The bombshell? It's not every day that a company en- trusted with the nation's audi- ence measurement appears in a court summons for allegedly failing to send official statistical questionnaires and racking up administrative penalties. According to a judicial pub- lication issued by the Court of Magistrates, Ms Marika Fsadni, in her personal capacity and on behalf of M. Fsadni & Associ- ates, has been formally notified to settle €1,380 in penalties, in- creasing monthly, for failing to submit two national statistical surveys requested by the Malta Statistics Authority. So far, de- velopments in these proceed- ings have led to Fsadni and Co. to face contempt of court charg- es. Quite the soap opera which, if used correctly, could even boost TV ratings by itself. If nothing else, one must commend the poetic sym- metry, especially the irony of it all. The company chosen to measure national viewing habits through phoned ques- tionnaires, now stands accused of not sending its own legal- ly-mandated questionnaires. Meanwhile, as the tenderer's phone-calls were concluded, the eagerly awaited results pro- claimed a miracle worthy of national acclaim. Wonder of wonders, NET TV, the finan- cially gasping station owned by the Nationalist Party, some- how emerged as Malta's most- watched channel with a weekly audience share of 23.9%. Cel- ebration came hard and fast, unfortunately without the cus- tomary champagne, given the state of this station's accounts that have yet to see the light of day. But then reality rudely barged in wearing a GO/Melita uni- form and carrying a gift set-top box for effect. The cold show- er was indeed freezing. Set-top box data, you see, the very in- formation advertisers and seri- ous TV stations actually trust and pay tens of thousands of euros yearly to access, paints a rather different picture. The Labour Party rightly pointed out that real-time, near-census data from these devices simply cannot be dismissed. Unlike a 300-person-a day survey (for a week), set-top boxes do not for- get what channel they're watch- ing, do not make polite guesses, are not swayed by probable po- litical leanings of the surname calling them, and definitely do not hang up halfway through the questionnaire to go and drop the pasta in the boiling water. And if anyone dares doubt the scale of this dataset, the Malta Communications Authority re- cently confirmed that Malta has 196,628+ daily-active TV sub- scriptions, all capable of gen- erating real-time viewing data. Compare this to a survey that represents about 655 viewers per phone call. Faced with this, NET TV im- mediately declared this data "fake news." Not because it's false, of course, but because they have not seen it, simply because they cannot afford ac- cess to it. It is difficult not to sympathise. When every euro counts, why would any strug- gling broadcaster embrace ac- curate audience measurement that threatens to reveal its ad- vertiser-repelling reality? Far better to clutch at the result of a bargain-bin survey and de- clare victory than confront the cold, hard numbers blinking back from tens of thousands of Maltese living rooms, what one might aptly dub "reality bytes." And so, here we are. On one side, vast, continuous, technol- ogy-driven, real-time data from nearly every household with a TV subscription. On the other, a small, once-every-six-months sample masterminded by a company currently navigating matters in the Courts of Mag- istrates. If this were a compe- tition between methodologies, it wouldn't be a contest. But as a competition between narra- tives, well… that's what TV is for, isn't it? 7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 DECEMBER 2025 OPINION Reality bytes: When 300 phone calls trump 196,000+ set-top boxes Silvio Scerri File photo If nothing else, one must commend the poetic symmetry, especially the irony of it all. The company chosen to measure national viewing habits through phoned questionnaires, now stands accused of not sending its own legally-mandated questionnaires Chairman ONE TV