Advanced Television

Italy: VoD close to overtaking linear TV

October 5, 2020

From Branislav Pekic in Rome

The increased time spent at home during the pandemic has led to a boom in demand for video streaming in Italy.

On September 27th, the Digital Auditel (the ‘Total Audience’, which measures consumption through connected devices) set a new record, with 3.18 million hours of use.

Research carried out by Samsung among Smart TV owners shows that streaming time has increased from 41 per cent to 47 per cent, and is close to overtaking linear TV.

Sensemakers’s study on the streaming services of leading Italian broadcasters revealed a 101 per cent growth in June (compared to the same month in 2019) and of 110 per cent in July.

In August, Mediaset led in content viewed, with an average of 20-25 million hours per month, followed by Sky Italia with an average of 15 million hours, edging out RAI with 13 million, down from a peak of 30 million hours in April.

However, Sky Italia is the leader in legitimate streams, slightly below 400 million, down from a peak of 700 million in March 2020, based on Auditel data. Two new original TV series, Diavoli and Petra, achieved 63 per cent and 61 per cent of total ratings, respectively.

For its part, Discovery Italia set a new record in September 2020 for its OTT service Dplay with over 2.6 million users connected (+18 per cent compared to last year) and 1.6 million hours viewed (+13 per cent).

Categories: Articles, Catch Up, Connected TV, Consumer Behaviour, OTT, Premium, Research, VOD

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