La Italian TV is increasingly "smart".
In the last 5 years, thanks to the transition to the new digital terrestrial, there has been a real boom in the so-called Smart TV. We have gone from 5 million devices to 18 million, growth of 210%. Also thanks to broadband coverage, which affects 90% of households and reaches over 90 million screens (out of a total of around 120 million screens overall).
They are some personal data emerged from annual report by Auditel entitled "Globalization, market, measurement systems: the role of JICs in the new media context". Auditel is the company that collects and publishes data on Italian television viewing. President Andrea Imperiali presented the annual report on the sector in Parliament.
The growth of Smart TVs will not stop. In perspective, “there is a further impetus deriving from the switch-off process for the new digital terrestrial standard and above all from the Pnrr, which provides for the creation of the so-called gigabit society by 2026, i.e. the one gigabit broadband coverage for all Italian families” explained Imperiali.
TV: stage of a globalized market
La TV has become central to the process of transformation of Italian company digitally. “A significant change – explains Imperiali – which is profoundly affecting the use and viewing behavior of television content”. The use of the media, in fact, and not only in our country, is increasingly polarized at the generational level: today 70% of young people between 18 and 24 watch through digital devices while almost 80% of the time spent 45 is allocated on traditional TV.
Within Smart TVs, today, the globalized market and they intertwine six different sectors:
- the TV sector (with its traditional news, broadcast and sport divisions);
- streaming (divided into SVOD – Subscription Video On Demand – AVOD – Advertising Video On Demand – and FAST – Free Ad-Supported Television)
- digital (consisting of social media and advertising);
- video games (increasingly convergent);
- hardware (with manufacturers of CTV and Smart TV);
- the cinema (or traditional studios).
Streaming TV thanks to the rise in interest rates, the return of inflation, the consumer crisis and the explosion of competition has suffered a decline in recent years. "Suddenly the competitive scenario has changed, becoming more complicated and, if possible, even more fierce" explains the president of Auditel. The race for subscriptions has slowed down and the stellar OTT prices, dragged down by the Wall Street crisis, have suffered a sharp contraction. Streaming companies tried using various strategies to avoid the flight of subscribers. Despite this, however, the Streaming TV continues its climb to dominate the market.
Streaming TV, in particular, confirms to be the global stage of the ongoing challenge between the US giants who move to conquer Europe (and Asia) who, in order to acquire significant shares of subscribers, adopt increasingly competitive price policies, also from an advertising point of view. A similar situation occurs with the video sharing platforms (for the purposes of advertising profiling) which, pressed by increasingly stringent data protection regulations, is registering, at a global level, transformations such as to significantly change the competitive dynamics, in the direction of a further concentration and excessive power of those who, already controlling the browser , advertising servers and operating systems, can (in fact) alter the rules of the market.
Un market, therefore, says Imperiali "already firmly guarded by real global digital oligopolists, may register a further, worrying, consolidation of dominant positions".
The new Total Audience measurement
In such a competitive scenario, the systems of audience detection must play a key role. As television changed, so did the way of measuring television data. Since last year Auditel has introduced the system Total Audience, designed and built to serve the market precisely to respond promptly to the changed technological context and changed consumer habits. Total Audience detects and measures cross-platform and cross-device consumption, "every day giving the market a faithful and accurate picture of increasingly personalized and increasingly fragmented methods of use" explained Imperiali.
