Times Of Malta Biggest Earner In €500,000 Government Fund For Print Media
Times of Malta is the biggest winner of a €500,000 fund allocated to the printed press to help them cope with increasing costs amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the fallout of COVID-19.
According to figures, Allied Newspapers, which operates Times of Malta, has so far been awarded €69,842 as part of the scheme.
Standard Publications, which publishes The Malta Independent, came in second, earning €45,735 so far.
The PN’s Media.Link and the General Workers Union’s Union Print were awarded €44,805 and €44,145 respectively.
MaltaToday and Illum’s Media Today were awarded €37,140, while SVP took home the least at around €9,210.
It appears that the entire €500,000 fund is yet to be dished out, with figures indicating that €250,895 has been issued so far.
The agreement has been long controversial, particularly given the dwindling number of print readers in the country and the lack of transparency on how the money would be allocated.
A survey by Vincent Marmara on people’s news consumption habits found that only 3% of the nation reads newspapers, which extrapolated would be equivalent to some 13,000 people.
In contrast, 72% of people get their news from links that appear on their social media feeds while 42% visit news websites directly.
The distribution of the funds was based on the number of employees, publications and the frequencies of the publications.
What do you think of the fund?
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