Streaming platforms are eating into TV’s market share and are aiming to overtake it
eMedia Study: between 2020 and 2025, Italian broadcasters’ share of revenue will fall from 78 per cent to 57 per cent. Global platforms are tightening their grip on distribution, data and advertising revenue.
The remote control is still the same, but the market behind it has changed radically. The distinction between traditional television and online video is becoming increasingly blurred every year, whilst the major global platforms are capturing an ever-greater share of revenue, advertising and viewing time. And reaching and surpassing the market share of traditional TV no longer seems like a pipe dream within a few years.
This is where the findings of an eMedia study come into play: in Italia, broadcasters have seen their share of the television video market fall from 78 per cent in 2020 to 57 per cent in 2025, a decline that reflects the new balance of power within the audiovisual industry.
eMedia’s analysis for *Il Sole 24 Ore* highlights this shift in phase. The video and television market is no longer limited to free-to-air and pay-TV: it now includes online services, ranging from SVOD to TVOD, as well as video-sharing platforms, starting with YouTube. The boundary has become fluid: the two components ‘are now increasingly integrated throughout the entire audiovisual sector’, giving rise to phenomena characterised by ‘both complementarity and substitutability’.
Emilio Pucci, director of eMedia, hits upon the most uncomfortable issue for TV broadcasters: ‘However hard broadcasters try – and with many success stories to their name – to hold their ground in the online offerings segment, the market structure does not reward editorial components and functions, but rather post-editorial ones, which are largely dominated by video-sharing platforms.’ This is the political and industrial crux of the matter: the game is not played solely on content – where European groups still hold brands, editorial teams, talent and sports rights – but on distribution, data and monetisation.
This is a continent-wide phenomenon, but it does not affect everyone in the same way. In Italia and France, the broadcasters’ share has fallen by the same margin: down 21 points. In Germany, the fall is 16 points; in the United Kingdom, 14. In Germany, the combined revenues of ARD and ZDF are close to 10 billion euros. The BBC is worth around 5.9 billion pounds. Rai and France Télévisions, on the other hand, stand at around 3 billion each. Scale is not merely an accounting detail: it translates into negotiating power and technological influence.
