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THE TELEVISION BROADCASTING MARKET
2009 was the year of the switchover to
DTT by a large part of the population.
Analogue broadcasting was terminated
in Western Piedmont, Val 'Aosta,
Trentino Alto Adige, almost all of Lazio
and in Campania, after accompanying
us for over fifty years. It was replaced by
the digital signal, which has made it
possible to increase the number of
television channels available and
consequently the range of choice
offered to viewers. At the end of the
year, almost 30% of the population was
reached exclusively by this type of
signal.
The switchover to digital, which will
completely replace analogue
broadcasting by the end of 2012 is
continuing in line with schedule and
steps to make the whole of Northern
Italy digital have already been laid out
for 2010. This will mean that a total of
70% of Italians will be reached by the
end of the year.
Further enhancement of the offering has
resulted in excellent television viewing
figures.In 2009 (Auditel reference period:
4/1/2009-2/1/2010) television
audiences registered the absolute record
for a whole day, touching on an
average of 9 and a half million viewers,
reaching an average prime time figure
of 24.4 million viewers, the best result
of the last four years.
At the end of 2009, about 65% of
households had digital television
(satellite and terrestrial broadcasting),
with this figure rising to 70% on an
individual basis due to the increased
possession by larger families with
children.
This growth hinges on DTT (digital
terrestrial television) which, boosted by
the aforementioned switch-off of
important areas of Italy and by sales of
televisions with built-in DTT tuners � the
only appliances available on the market
since last April � has overtaken satellite
broadcasting and is the most
widespread platform, having reached a
user base of about 32 million people,
56% of the population, in December
2009.
In this sphere, Rai with its eight channels
� which will become 13 in the areas
where the switch-off has been completed
- is the broadcaster with the most
extensive and attractive free offering, not
only in Italy, but also in Europe.
In the DTT pay segment, Mediaset's
leadership with its semi-premium and
premium packages reaches a subscriber
base of about 2.9 million users (cards
active in September 2009). The second
operator is Airplus which activated its
service in March 2009 with the Dahlia
brand, replacing that of La7 Cartapiù, and
which has a subscriber base estimated at
around 400 thousand families.
Satellite has a total of 17.7 million
potential viewers (31% of the total) and
is still characterized by the undisputed
leadership of the Pay segment, in which
Sky, with 4.5 million subscriber
households (virtually unchanged from
2008), reaches about 12.8 million
people (22% of the population).
July 2009 witnessed the birth of TivùSat,
Italy's first free satellite platform, set up
within the scope of Tivù, a company
owned jointly by Rai, Mediaset and
Telecom Italia Media.
Designed to reach every area of the
country, including those which will not
be covered by the DTT signal even
when it is fully operational, thanks to a
special tuner and relative smartcard,
TivùSat makes it possible to receive the
whole existing television offering
(including all the programmes without
foreign broadcasting rights), of all the
new national television channels and of
a series of other Italian and
international channels (such as
Euronews, France 24, BBC World News,
TVE International, Canal 24 Horas,
Arte, Deutsche Welle, ZDF ARD and
others).
The market continues to be
characterized by a greater articulation
of the transmission and reception
platforms and by increased
competition at all levels: from the
acquisition of production factors
(rights, content and talents), to
attention (viewing figures), to public
expenditure (related mainly to pay TV)
and income from advertising.
In terms of offering models, innovations
continue with the specialization of the
television channels on the one hand,
with a focus by types of audience
and/or themes, and with the
development of non-linear offerings on
the other, released from the typical logic
of programming.
This latter category includes all the
video on demand services (present
especially in the offering by IpTv)
operators) as well as the new digital
video recorders (including My Sky
offered by the main pay operator),
which make recording and then
watching television event (even while it is being recorded and consequently with
time differences of just a few minutes in
relation to its actual broadcasting)
extremely simple.
Rai has contributed successfully to this
major offering with its specialized
digital channels, all of which are free,
and with an almost entirely public
service programming (Rai 4, Rai
Storia, Rai Sport Più, RaiNews 24, Rai
Gulp, Rai Scuola, RaiSat Cinema,
RaiSat Premium, RaiSat Extra and
RaiSat YoYo) proving its ability to
combine the tradition of generalinterest
TV with the innovation of
specialized TV.
By strengthening its nature as a public
service, Rai continues to be strongly
committed also to other communication
media, such as publishing, radio, film
and web, diversifying and integrating
the products it offers.
IPTV continues to occupy a marginal
part of the Italian broadcasting market
despite considerable efforts by
telephone companies, particularly
Telecom Italia and Fastweb, to build,
articulate and promote an attractive
service.
Albeit at a much slower rate than in the
past, Internet continues to grow in terms
of users, time spent on the Net and use
of the various applications.
According to the latest estimates drawn
up by Audiweb, in December 2009
about 23 million Italians logged onto
the Internet at least once, either from
home or at work.
In economic terms, this development is
translating into rapid growth in revenues
from direct expenditure by users (e.g., to
purchase content), and particularly into
a boom in advertising revenue. The Net is consolidating its role as a
channel for the distribution of
audiovisual contents via a broad range
of services differentiated considerably in
terms of offering and business models,
characterized by a competitive arena full
of traditional operators (e.g.,
broadcasters) and new points of
reference for users (phone companies,
portals, delivery platforms such as
Google/You Tube, distributors like
Apple, channel aggregators, and
specialized web TV stations aimed at
specific communities).
In this context of rapid change, by
taking advantage of its position of
central importance as a general-interest
television network and of its capacity to
attract widely diversified audiences, Rai
progressively accompanies the
hybridisation of Italian media
consumption and continues to positively
face market change thanks to its
integration strategy and exploitation of
the various platforms on which it always
been present.
2009 was a year full of technological
and industrial challenges which will be
intensified in the years to come and will
make the scenario increasingly complex
and competitive. Rai has succeeded in
moving with agility in the past and will
know how to guide change in the future
offering a complete response to the
needs of increasingly differentiated
audiences.
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