Italian TV sector remains flat in 2018
July 15, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The Italian TV sector was worth €8.21 billion in 2018, a slight drop on the €8.22 billion the year before, according to the annual report from Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom).
Advertising accounted for 40.8 per cent of the total revenues, followed by subscriptions (37.9 per cent) and public funding (21.3 per cent).
The sector is still dominated by the three biggest operators, holding slightly less than 90 per cent of total resources and market share.
Comcast/Sky Italia was responsible for 34.6 per cent of total revenues (+2.2 per cent), ahead of RAI with 27.6 per cent (-0.4 per cent) and Fininvest/Mediaset with 25.2 per cent (-2.6 per cent)
Lagging behind are Discovery with 2.7 per cent (+0.1 per cent), Cairo Communication with 1.6 per cent (+0.1 per cent), while others had 8.3 per cent (+0.7 per cent).
Revenues in the free-to-air segment were €4.79 billion (58.4 per cent), while pay-TV was responsible for the remaining €3.42 billion (41.6 per cent).
In the FTA segment, RAI is still the leader with 47.3 per cent (-0.8 per cent), ahead of Fininvest/Mediaset with 34.3 per cent (+0.5 per cent). The third biggest player is Discovery (thanks to its FTA channels Real Time, Dmax, Focus, Giallo, Deejay Tv – Nove) with a 4.3 per cent share.
Comcast/Sky Italia dominates the pay-TV segment with an 80.3 per cent market share (+5.4 per cent), followed by Fininvest/Mediaset with 12.4 per cent (-7.1 per cent). The rest of the market is divided up by online platforms such as Netflix, Chili, Amazon and DAZN.