Chiara Sbarigia, President of the Italian Audiovisual Producers Association (APA) this morning presented the 5th Report on Italian Audiovisual Production, at the MIA Market, in the presence of a distinguished parterre of guests.
Among the speakers were Lucia Borgonzoni, Undersecretary of State to the Ministry of Culture; Tinny Andreatta, Vice President Italian Originals, Netflix; Antonella d’Errico, Executive Vice President Content di Sky Italia; Antonella Dominici, Senior Vice President Streaming South Europe Middle East & Africa, Paramount+ and Pluto TV; Giampaolo Rossi, General Manager, RAI and Gina Nieri, Executive Director Mediaset.
The Report showed that the total value of investments in original Italian productions (of all genres) is €1,800 million and that investments on linear platforms (free and pay) is circa €1 billion.
Chiara Sbarigia said, “The steady growth of the online component is now worth almost a third of the TV component. Films and series for TV and fiction VOD constitute the main genre in terms of investments (55%), but we have seen significant growth in documentaries and animation, mainly in the VOD segment.”
As for entertainment, the 2022/2023 season saw an increase in hours, with 16,855 hours of first run offerings on linear networks, a figure that signals a recovery of +7% compared to the previous season. Data from OTT services were also positive, showing an increase, compared to the previous season, in both hours (+5%) and titles (+9%), rewarding in particular the independent production model (+24% in titles and +30% in hours). Adaptations from international formats grew both in terms of titles (+11%) and in terms of hours (+39%), thanks in particular to the Talent, Reality, Dating and Factual genres. While remaining marginal, the presence of domestic products sold abroad as formats also marks a slight improvement over previous seasons, with two more titles among Made in Italy formats.
On the Documentary sector, President Sbarigia states, “a growth can be noted in terms of hours (555, +4%) against a slight decrease in titles (231, -1%). There is a slight decrease in the number of contents broadcast by linear networks (183, -9%), but an increase in the number of hours in the programming schedule (442, +5%). While the increase in docu-titles for OTT platforms is significant (48, +41%), which however focus on shorter formats, with a substantial holding of hours (93, -2%).”
In relation to Kids TV, the report shows that animation accounts for three quarters of the offer, but the genre that grows the most is scripted (films and TV series). Productions or co-productions with a significant role of national production companies account for 15% of the kids offer.
In the Scripted offering, seriality prevails with 56 titles (48%) and 548 hours (79%), which remains stable and favours the ‘short series’ format, which is more widespread among OTT. From a genre perspective, Drama is growing slightly (+4 titles, +3% hours) and prevails over Comedy (-3 titles, -10% hours vs 2021/2022). Among sub-genres, there is a boom in Teen & Coming of Age content (+11 titles, +62% hours), which is more prevalent in drama and predominant in OTT catalogues.
“As for employment figures,” she concluded, “almost 117,000 workers are involved in audiovisual activities. Compared to 2021 figures, there is an overall dynamic of +4.7%. The self-employed component is the item that registers the highest result (+9.8%), followed by employees outside the perimeter (+8.6%), directors (+2.4%), and employees (+0.6%), while entrepreneurs are substantially stationary.”
The Italian Audiovisual Production Report has been produced by APA, with the valuable collaboration of important research institutes such as eMedia, Ce.R.T.A- Television and Audiovisual Research Centre of the University of Sacro Cuore of Milan and Symbola.
All the research is available in full on https://ricerche.apaonline.it/.