Quality Index in Chilean Open Television

This article presents the genesis/development of the construction of a quality index for open television in Chile and the main findings of its application in the year 2006. A theoretical analysis of the concept of quality in the mass media industry, and a qualitative study that shed light on the concept from the viewpoint of the industry, TV audiences and advertisers, provided the background to generate an index whose main strength is that it integrates the opinion of viewers, their behaviour, and the intrinsic quality of the product. The results of the application of this index show that in terms of quality, Chilean television is considered to be average to middling, with news programs as the best evaluated and miscellaneous/general entertainment programs with the poorest evaluations.