Declining TV Viewership Trend Persists in Italy

Television viewership in Italy showed stability in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. According to Italy’s Communications Regulatory Authority, the daily viewership remained slightly above 8.55 million, while prime-time audiences saw a marginal increase of 0.5 per cent to 20.12 million.

However, when compared to 2020, both daily and prime-time viewership experienced significant declines of 21.8 per cent and 19.4 per cent, respectively. This downward trend has been consistent since 2019, with a decrease of 2.39 million daily viewers and a drop of 4.85 million in prime-time audiences.

In terms of broadcasters, Italian public broadcaster Rai surpassed its commercial rival Mediaset in average daily viewership, with Rai attracting 3.21 million viewers compared to Mediaset’s 3.16 million. Both broadcasters saw slight year-over-year declines, with Rai losing 1.07 million viewers (25.1 per cent) and Mediaset losing 660,000 viewers (17.3 per cent).

Rai also edged out Mediaset in market share by 0.5 percentage points in the first half of 2024, a decrease from Rai’s lead of 4.3 percentage points in 2020. Other key players in the market, such as Warner Bros Discovery, Comcast/Sky, and Cairo Communication/La7, experienced varying degrees of growth in viewership during the first half of 2024.

In the prime-time segment, Rai led with 7.88 million daily viewers, slightly ahead of Mediaset’s 7.13 million. Notably, Warner Bros Discovery saw a significant increase of 24.8 per cent to 1.74 million daily viewers, surpassing Comcast/Sky in prime-time viewership. Cairo Communication/La7 also experienced a notable growth of 17.3 per cent to 1.18 million viewers.

Analyzing individual channels, Rai 1, Italia 1, Rete 4, La7, and Nove saw growth in viewership in the first half of 2024, while Rai 3, TV8, and Canale 5 experienced declines.

Streaming platforms such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and Now collectively reached 14.35 million unique users in Italy, with Netflix experiencing a decline in average users. However, Prime Video, Disney+, and Now all saw growth in their user base. Total viewing time on these platforms in June 2024 was approximately 40 million hours, marking a 1.6% increase year-on-year.

Sports streaming platform DAZN registered 2.1 million unique users in Italy, showing a slight decrease in its user base. Furthermore, free Video on Demand (VoD) platforms like News Mediaset Sites, Sky TG24, and RaiPlay reached over 34 million unique users in June 2024, despite a decline compared to the previous year. However, the total viewing time and average viewing time per user on these platforms increased by 2.7 per cent.