Italy: Number of TV channels drops
April 21, 2023
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italian households had the potential of receiving 343 TV channels on DTT and satellite in 2022, down from 413 in 2021, distributed by over 100 broadcasters, of which 80 based in Italy.
The annual survey by Confindustria Radio Televisioni (CRTV), shows that 292 channels were owned by broadcasters based in Italy, of which 106 distributed via DTT and 239 on satellite (FTA and pay-TV).
If time-shifted and HD versions are excluded, the number of parent TV channels owned by Italian broadcasters drops to 225.
The TV offer consists of 164 SD, 125 HD (119 on DTH and 47 on DTT, not including duplications) and three 4K channels.
The HD FTA offer (DTT and TivùSat) continues to grow and reached 67, up from just five 2012.
Italians were able to receive 117 pay-TV channels, all of them on Sky Italia’s DTH platform, plus 170 FTA channels, of which 107 distributed by the Tivusat satellite platform.
For the fourth year in a row, Sky Italia’s pay-TV offer continued to drop, now consisting of 117 channels, after the closure of the broadcaster’s activities on DTT in April 2022. There are also six pay-TV channels from streaming service DAZN.
In terms of TV channels, the top five broadcasting groups based in Italy were Sky Italia (91), RAI (50), Mediaset (20), Warner Bros Discovery (14) and Paramount Italia (11).
According to CRTV, there were 42.9 million TV sets in Italian homes in 2022 (+0.3 per cent on 2017), of which 16.7 million were Connected TVs (+211 per cent), while there were a total of 93.2 million connected screens (+26.1 per cent).