TV, consumption stable and streaming less overwhelming than expected (but viewing on social is growing)

TV does not give up. Or rather, it does not retreat much. In the last season, television consumption remained substantially stable compared to the previous year, in contrast to the liturgy that for years has been announcing the imminent end of the small screen. Suggesting that the decline is less rapid than expected is the 2025 Yearbook of Italian Television, presented at the Catholic University of Milan and edited by Massimo Scaglioni, professor of Media Economics and Marketing and director of Ce.R.T.A.

"Average consumption September 2024-May 2025 in total audience is 8,730,000 average viewers on the average day, a difference of just 100,000 viewers compared to the previous 12 months (-1.2%)," the study notes. An almost imperceptible drop, which would be more marked if we were to isolate traditional TV (-1.6%). But it is precisely that total audience - the fusion of linear and digital - that Italian broadcasters have learnt to handle with increasing ease, increasingly resembling 'streamcasters', that is holding back the decline.

Not even prime time yields much: 19.6 million viewers, only 1.4% less than the previous season. And even extending the time horizon to the period from 1 January to 15 November 2025, the picture does not change: according to TechEdge's processing of Auditel data, the average viewing time is 3 hours and 17 minutes, practically unchanged despite a year poor in major sporting events.

The big surprise is streaming. It grows, but slowly. The so-called 'unrecognised', i.e. the offer of the over the top such as Netflix or YouTube not recorded in detail by Auditel, advances only by 1.7%, stopping at 18.8% of the total consumption: 45 minutes per day, 1.8 million average audience. Platforms nibble minutes, not yet whole evenings.

Yet Italian homes are better equipped than a few years ago. Paolo Lugiato, Auditel's general director, recalls that 'Out of a pool of 43.9 million televisions there are 23.1 million smart TVs, and then 50.4 million smartphones, 19.9 million computers and 7.4 million tablets. 93 per cent of Italian households access the Internet, but only 65 per cent have broadband and 26 per cent access the net only via smartphones'. It is the paradox of a country full of screens but half-connected.