Breakdown of TV market value in Italy 2018-2020, by source of income

Between 2018 and 2020, in Italy, revenues from TV advertising were reported to decrease from 38 to 36 percent of total TV revenues. The revenues from pay TV would compensate with a growing share of revenues, reaching 43 percent as of 2020. As far as public broadcaster RAI was concerned, its revenues from fees were expected to drop to 20 percent of the total TV market revenues. This would be mainly due to the reduction of license fees planned for next years.
With the term license fee, it is meant that users pay a tax for the reception of certain TV and radio broadcasters. In Italy, this is the case for the national public broadcaster Rai (Radio Televisione Italiana), the second broadcaster by market share by 2020.

Short history of Rai’s license fee

From 2010 to 2013, the revenues of Rai from license fees increased slightly from 1.68 to 1.75 million euros. In 2014, a dramatic drop was reported at 1.58 million euros. Also because of the significant evasion of this fee, the Italian government set the charging of the tax in the electricity bill starting from 2016. The widespread measure boosted the revenues to 1.9 billion euros during that year.

License fees in other EU countries

The license fee represents a limited but safe source of income for the broadcasting industry, in Italy like in other EU countries. An increase in the license fees revenues was reported in Norway, Sweden, and Germany, where the revenues reached 5.2 billion euros in 2016. Additionally, in the UK, the BBC released data about rising income due to its license fee in the years between 2010 and 2019.