Italy: TV viewership up 1.1% in 2024
December 6, 2024
From Branislav Pekic in Rome

Despute global trends to the contrary, Italian TV viewership increased by 1.1 per cent in 2024, driven by both traditional and connected TV.
As detailed in the 2024 Yearbook of Italian Television by the Research Center on Television and Audiovisuals (CeRTA), this growth is primarily driven by streaming.
Rai 1 remains the dominant channel, holding five of the top five and eight of the top ten most-watched programmes.
Traditional linear TV viewership for major Italian broadcasters like Rai, Mediaset and Sky increased by 0.4 per cent. Smaller broadcasters showed particularly robust growth, with Warner Bros Discovery and La7 experiencing double-digit increases (10.5 per cent and 10.1 per cent, respectively).
However, on-demand viewing experienced much stronger growth, with streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video seeing a 4.3 per cent increase in viewership, averaging 1.8 million viewers daily. This growth is significantly driven by the increasing prevalence of smart TVs, now numbering 20.2 million – surpassing the 19.7 million PCs found in Italian homes.
Despite the rise of streaming and other digital activities, Italians still dedicate significantly more time to traditional TV (3 hours 16 minutes daily) than to streaming platforms, gaming and internet browsing (44 minutes). This is significantly higher than in other major Western countries, where daily traditional TV viewing averages between 2 hours 18 minutes in the US and 2 hours 57 minutes in France.