Satellite TV provider Sky Italia heads the Italian TV market in revenue terms, ending 2013 with a turnover of €2.6 billion, a drop of 3.5 per cent on the previous year, according to the annual report of the Communications Authority (AgCom).

The bulk of Sky Italia’s revenue came from pay-TV (€2.3 billion), accounting for a 77.8 per cent market share, compared to 79.1 per cent in 2012.

Public broadcaster RAI was ranked second with revenues of €2.3 billion (-1.6 per cent), while Mediaset group last year reported revenues of €2.2 billion, down 8.2 per cent year-on-year. Mediaset’s pay-TV market share stood at 19.1 per cent, an increase on 2012 (17.6 per cent).

Cairo Communication (owner of national broadcaster La7) saw its 2013 revenues increase by 268.9 per cent to €136 million, while Discovery (which operates 6 FTA channels) ended the year with revenues of €125 million (+110.7 per cent).

Overall, the revenues of Italy’s TV sector dropped 4.4 per cent on 2012, from €8.387 million to €8.021 million. The free-to-air segment was worth €4.694 million (-6 per cent), while the pay-TV sector was worth €3.325 million (-2 per cent).

According to AgCom president Angelo Marcello Cardani, the regulator has completed the analysis of the transmission capacity on the main distribution platforms, which shows that there are no “technical or economical issues” that restrict access to the transmission resource, such as to justify the imposition of must-carry obligations on a national level.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTH/Satellite, FTA, Markets, Pay TV, Research