Specialists attribute this decline to the rising popularity of digital television and forecast that the viewer audiences of Lithuania's major TV channels may decrease further by up to 10 percent following the 29 October switch-off of analogue television in the country.
"Viewers have a wider choice of channels and increasingly watch those channels that are only available digitally. Most of these are foreign TV channels," Orestas Kostiukas, CEO of the advertising planning agency Omnicom Media Group, said.
According to data from the market research company TNS LT, the share of digital-only TV channels in the total TV viewing time this year rose to 43 percent share, from 30 percent in 2010.
TNS LT estimates that the audiences of TV3 and LNK have fallen by 21-25 percent over the past two years, which is almost as much as the digital TV network has expanded.
