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Prime TV Loses to RTR Moldova and Moldova 1 the Position of Audience Leader

27 December 2019
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For the first time in 2019 (January to November), the television station owned by former Democratic leader Vlad Plahotniuc – Prime TV, has remised its number one position in the popularity rating. It was surpassed by RTR Moldova (1st place) and Moldova 1 Public Broadcaster (2nd place), according to the data of the MR MLD TV audience measurement in the Republic of Moldova (representative of The Nielson Company in Switzerland). Thus, according to audience measurement reports, the rating of Prime TV dropped from 3.04 in January to 1.38 in November.

RTR Moldova had 1.67% in November, outdoing PRIME TV by 0.29 points. At the beginning of the year, RTR had a rating of 1.97. Moldova 1 had 1.40% in November, i.e. by 0.02 points more than Prime TV.


The TV Rating for November month, 2019. Saurce: agb.md

Canal 2 – another TV channel affiliated with Vlad Plahotniuc, owned by his advisor, Oleg Cristal, also saw its rating drop from 1.35% in January to 0.48% in November. Note that Primul in Moldova, although first assessed in November, came quickly quite close to Canal 2, having had a rating of 0.38%.


The ratings of PRIME TV, RTR Moldova, Canal 2, Moldova 1, Primul in Moldova for January-November 2019. Source: TV MR MLD

Note that Prime TV and Canal 2 used to be regarded by the Broadcasting Council as national providers of audiovisual media services before they gave up analog national frequencies.

Thus, so far only Moldova 1 TV channel broadcasts in analog format.

Olga Bordeianu, President of Teleradio-Moldova stated at a meeting of the TRM Oversight Council that the recent high rating of Moldova 1 was also due to the fact that Prime TV and Canal 2 stopped broadcasting in analog format.

The rating of TV channels is believed to have been influenced to a certain extent by the order of broadcasters in the channel listings of telecommunication operators. Thus, according to the last changes operated by Moldtelecom, Primul in Moldova appears now 2nd in the channel listing of the national telecommunication operator. Prime TV used to be 2nd, but it was moved to the 8th position.

The channel listing of StarNet, another telecommunication operator that has important clients, looks differently. Prime TV is 5th on this list, Moldova 1 – 9th, while Primul in Moldova is the 33rd.

TV MR MLD uses the peoplemeter audience measurement system to find out what are the TV viewer preferences. Such information is being collected now from 365 households throughout the Republic of Moldova.

TV MR MLD obtained the exclusive right to measure TV audience on the Moldovan market for the next five years when it was selected for this task in March 2019 by a Tender Committee consisting of representatives of media services providers, advertising agents and advertising companies. At least two TV stations, PRO TV Chisinau and Jurnal TV, stated they would not use the services of the selected company, because, according to them, the tender was not carried out properly.