2021 Italy Consumer Insights survey: Entertainment consumption gains maintained

Introduction

The increased hours homebound Italians have spent consuming digital entertainment over the past two pandemic years appear to be sticking around, according to the recently completed Kagan 2021 Italy Consumer Insights survey.

* Daily hours watching TV and video in Italy has risen each of the past three years.

* Adoption of online subscription video-on-demand services has also continued to climb, reaching 85% in 2021.

* There is an ongoing shift away from watching live TV to viewing on-demand video.

* The percentage of internet adults in Italy with a paid online music subscription reached 29% in 2021.

Overall, the survey found that Italian adults spent an average of 6.4 hours per day on digital entertainment in 2021, just a tick below elevated 2020 consumption levels, driven by COVID-19-related mandatory lockdowns and office closures. Time spent watching TV and/or video content has risen slightly in each of the past three years, reaching 3.2 hours per day on average in 2021. Daily hours spent listening to music and playing video games receded only slightly last year.

Fueling the increase in TV/video consumption during 2021 was the continued rise of online SVOD adoption in Italy. Historical survey data illustrates how SVOD use has climbed from approximately half (49%) of internet households in 2017 to 85% in 2021. Over 80% of households in Italy receive both online video and free-to-air TV broadcast programming.

Amazon Prime Video is the dominant SVOD service provider in Italy with nearly two-thirds (64%) of internet households using the service. Nine out of 10 (91%) Amazon Prime Video users also subscribe to the Amazon Prime e-commerce delivery service. Other major SVOD services in Italy include Netflix, Disney+ and the live sports service, DAZN. Domestic SVOD services, such as Telecom Italia's TIMvision, Mediaset's Infinity TV and Sky's NOW TV, have achieved only modest subscribership to date.

In addition to an expanding base of SVOD households, the survey also highlights a TV viewing shift away from live TV to on-demand video. For example, over the past four years the percentage of internet adults reporting they primarily watch live TV has declined 14 percentage points from 43% in 2018 to 29% last year. It is interesting that over the four-year time frame, the percentage of respondents watching mostly TV with some VOD has remained essentially flat, while those spending at least one-half or more of their time watching VOD have increased substantially. This suggests that free-to-air TV broadcast programming is gradually losing out to the more popular SVOD and ad-supported video-on-demand content.

The 2021 survey results show that approximately seven out of 10 internet adults in Italy listen to online music, down slightly year over year but nevertheless strong. The data also shows that the use of paid online music services continues to grow in popularity, reaching 29% of internet adults last year. Spotify and Amazon Prime Music are the most popular online music services. Video games are also extremely popular in Italy, with 70% of internet adults playing mobile games and two-thirds playing online PC and/or consoles games. The pandemic did not appear to have any significant effect on music or gaming in Italy.

^{The 2021 Kagan European Consumer Insights surveys were conducted in December 2021 with approximately 1,000 internet adults per country in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland. Each survey has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Percentages are rounded up to the nearest whole number. Survey data should only be used to identify general market characteristics and directional trends.}

^{Consumer Insights is a regular feature from Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence's TMT offering, providing exclusive research and commentary.}

^{This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.}