3 AUG 2022

Italy: TV industry experimented a 4.1% growth in 2021

The rise was driven by FTA as advertising sales recovered, reaching €4.8 billion and increasing share of total revenues to 39.1 %, from 35.9 % a year earlier.

Imagen Los ingresos de la TV paga bajarán en promedio un 11% para 2023

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Italian TV sector has experimented a growth of +4.1% in revenues reaching €7.9 billion, according to AgCom, the National Communications Authority. The positive numbers were driven by FTA, as advertising sales recovered, reaching €4.8 billion and increasing the share of total revenues to 39.1 %, from 35.9 % a year earlier. Pay-TV revenues decreased from 40.1 % in 2020 to 37.3 % in 2021, earning €3.08 billion, while Public funds accounted for 23.7 % of the remaining revenues of the TV sector.

Despite the level of market concentration having decreased, the top three players, RAI, Sky, and MFE group (ex Mediaset), still accounted for 79 % of total resources. Public broadcaster RAI regained first place, surpassing pay-TV group Sky, affected by a decline in subscription revenues resulting from a reduction in the TV rights to broadcast Serie A football matches. Fininvest, operating in the sector through the MFE group (formerly Mediaset), consolidated its third position, increasing its revenue share by nearly 2%.

Among other players, online platforms saw the highest growth and now represent 11 % of the total, and FTA and subscription-based channels saw an annual drop of 9% in the number of viewers on an average day, returning to pre-pandemic figures. This decline is most notorious in the under-34 age group (-18 %). On the other hand, SVoD platforms, after registering a boom in 2020 (from 11.2 to 14.3 million unique users), continued to grow in 2021, reaching 14.9 million unique users, with a peak of 16 million in December.

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