Forecasted YoY percentage change in revenues of TV broadcasters in Italy 2019-2020

In 2020, the TV broadcaster Sky is forecast to increase its revenues by more than three percent in Italy. Traditional broadcasters Mediaset and Rai, on the other hand, are expected to see their revenues decrease by 2.4 and 0.4 percent respectively. Projections for the Italian TV market showed this is due to the lower revenues generated by advertising and license fees between 2018 and 2020. The better performances of Sky can be related to the increasing share of revenues generated by the pay TV subscriptions. These went from 40 percent of the total TV market value in 2018 to 43 percent in 2020.

A leading position in the market

By 2020, Sky is expected to reach a leading position in the Italian TV market , with a market share of 35 percent. The public broadcaster Rai and the private group Mediaset would follow with 26 and 23 percent, respectively. Reasons for this market positioning are different. Firstly, Sky invested a significant−although slightly decreasing−amount of resources during the last years. In 2016, the Italian division of the group invested 7.4 percent of its gross fixed assets, whereas Mediaset and Rai invested 3.4 and 2.3 percent of their assets in the same year. Secondly, user behavior evolved. With the rise of on-demand content and video streaming, the content provided by Sky on their multichannel platform seems more attractive to the users. In fact, the subscriptions for Serie A and Champions League are expected to slightly increase during next season.

Crisis of TV advertising

The crisis of TV advertising was reported in the whole segment of pay TV, where advertising revenues dropped from 394 million euros in 2012 to 303 million euros in 2018. Over the same years, subscription revenues grew instead from 2,990 to 3,117 million euros. Contrary to Mediaset and Rai, Sky is less affected by a shrinking TV advertising market, thanks to its subscriptions revenues.