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Italian TV: The Shift to Digital Has Changed the Landscape

, by Fabrizio Perretti - ordinario di social movements, markets and firms, translated by Alex Foti
The switch from broadcast to digital has not increased the audience of Italian television. But new actors, both within the tradtional networks and outside them, have found an identity and a following big enough to significantly alter the audience split among the channels

The switch from analog to digital of Italian TV is now complete. It was a gradual process started in 2008 that eventually spread to all the Italian regions. In July 2012, Sicily and Calabria also went digital, so that the whole country is covered by free digital television. As a first phase has now ended, it's time to draft a provisional assessment of the changes it has brought to the Italian TV landscape.

The idea behind the shift to digital was to rationalize and free frequencies, enabling the end user to watch, in addition to existing broadcast TV channels, a whole new supply of additional channels, some already present on satellite pay-tv.

In reference to these new entrants, it's interesting to note how they were able carve out a significant portion of the traditional TV audience. If you look at annual share data, you can see that today the new channels command the attention of a quarter of viewers. In 2009 their share was 5%, in 2010 12.6%, in 2011 22%, and data covering the first half of 2012 show that it has further increased to 25.2%. This is a significant change, which shows how the transition to digital has made Italian viewers migrate toward new channels.

The new channels favored by the audience of digital television belong to the two major TV incumbents, i.e. RAI (Rai 4, Rai Sport, Rai Premium) and Mediaset (Boing, Iris, Mediaset Extra). This means that they have to manage the new channels along with the existing ones, as they face an overall drop in the audience and a dispersion of existing viewers, with negative repercussions on their balance sheets.

The true novelty in media supply on digital TV is represented by the Real Time channel. Since April 2012 is the most viewed new channel, with an average of 118,000 viewers per day. Thanks to a savvy mix of national and imported programs and to the making of new TV faces, they have managed to capture audience.

Even if Real Time is trailing far behind major TV channels (Rai 1 and Canale 5 manage to attract 1,7 million viewers per day each, while their other channels hover around 700,000 pairs of eyeballs per day), it is a clear example that in the near future successful channels will be those able to develop a strong identity that allows them to distinguish themslelves in an increasingly crowded TV landscape. Traditional TV media groups seem to have forgotten this lesson.

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