APA: Investment in Italian Productions Tops €1.8 Billion

Today at the MIA market, Chiara Sbarigia, president of the Italian Audiovisual Producers Association (APA), presented the latest report on Italian audiovisual production, which finds the total value of investments in original Italian productions at €1.8 billion.

Investment in linear platforms (free and pay) is around €1 billion.

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 (up 55 percent), but we have seen significant growth in documentaries and animation, mainly in the VOD segment.”

For entertainment, the 2022-23 season saw an increase in hours, with 16,855 hours of first-run offerings on linear networks, a recovery of 7 percent compared to the previous season. OTT services showed an increase in both hours (5 percent) and titles (9 percent), rewarding, in particular, the independent production model (up 24 percent in titles and 30 percent in hours). Adaptations from international formats grew in titles (11 percent) and hours (39 percent).

In the documentary segment, growth can be seen in terms of hours (555, up 4 percent) against a slight decrease in titles (231, down 1 percent). There is a slight decrease in the amount of content broadcast by linear networks (183, down 9 percent) but an increase in the number of hours in the programming schedule (442, up 5 percent). The increase for OTT platforms is significant (48, up 41 percent); however, they tend to focus on shorter formats, with a substantial holding of hours (93, down 2 percent).

Regarding kids’ programming, the report shows that animation accounts for three-quarters of the offer, but the genre that has grown the most is scripted (films and TV series). Productions or co-productions with a significant role in national production companies account for 15 percent of the kids’ offer.

In scripted, serialized saw 56 titles (up 48 percent) and 548 hours (79 percent). From a genre perspective, drama is growing slightly (up 4 titles,  up 3 percent in hours) and prevails over comedy (down 3 titles, down 10 percent in hours). Among sub-genres, there is a boom in teen and coming-of-age content (up by 11 titles, up 62 percent in hours).

As for employment figures, almost 117,000 workers are involved in audiovisual activities. Compared to 2021 figures, there is an overall dynamic of increasing 4.7 percent. The self-employed component is the item that registers the highest result (up 9.8 percent), followed by employees outside the perimeter (8.6 percent), directors (2.4 percent) and employees (0.6 percent), while entrepreneurs are relatively flat.