In the morning of the closing day of the MIA - Mercato Internazionale dell’Audiovisivo di Roma, Chiara Sbarigia, President of the Audiovisual Producers Association (APA) presented the 5th Report on National Audiovisual Production for the 2022/2023 season. Intervening during the presentation were Lucia Borgonzoni, State Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Culture; Eleonora Andreatta, Vice President of Italian Originals at Netflix; Antonella d’Errico, Executive Vice President of Content at Sky Italia; Antonella Dominici, Senior Vice President of Streaming for Sud Europa, Middle-East and Africa of Paramount+ and Pluto TV; Gina Nieri, Mediaset Board Member, and Giampaolo Rossi, General Director of RAI.

Amongst the most significant numbers presented in the Report, it emerged that in the 2022/2023 season, the total value of investments into original Italian productions (in all genres) amounted to €1.8 billion, and that investments in linear platforms (free or requiring payment) was around €1 billion.

Chiara Sbarigia then declared: “The constant growth of online content is today worth about a third of that of television. Fiction films and series for TV and VOD constitute the main genre per volume of investment (55%) but we have noticed an important increase for documentaries and animation, mainly in the VOD segment.”

As for entertainment, the data reveals that in the 2022/2023 period, the hours offered as first viewings on linear channels (16.855) increased, marking a growth of +7% compared to the 2021/2022 season. Compared to the previous season, OTT services also showed good growth, in terms of hours (+5%) and titles (+9%), "rewarding in particular the independent production model (+24% in titles and +30% in hours)."

At the same time, adaptations of international formats are growing both in terms of titles (+11%) and in terms of hours (+39%), in particular thanks to talent shows, reality TV, dating shows and the factual genre.

Italian formats sold abroad, by contrast, register only a marginal growth (only two more titles compared to the previous season). Regarding documentaries, a small growth is in evidence in terms of hours (+4% for a total of 555 hours) and a minar fall in titles (-1%, for a total of 231 titles).

A slight decrease is also evident in the amount of content broadcast by linear networks (183, -9%) accompanied by an increase of hours of programming (442, +5%). Also revealed is “a significant increase of documentaries for OTT platforms (48, +41%), which, however, focus on shorter formats, with a substantial retention of hours (93, -2%)."

Within the kids segment, the Report highlights that animation represents ¾ of the offer and that the genre that grows the most is the scripted format (namely film and series). In particular, “productions or co-productions in which national production entities have an important role account for 15% of the offer for children,” while “in the scripted offer, series excel, with 56 titles (48%) and 548 hours (79%), which remains stable and favours the short series format, most popular amongst the OTT.”

In terms of genre trends, drama is growing slightly (+4 titles, +3% hours), comedy is retreating (-3 titles, -10% hours vs. 2021/2022) and teen and coming-of-age content is exploding (+11 titles, +62% hours), and is predominantly serial and predominant in OTT catalogues.

Finally, talking about the data relative to the workforce of the sector, Sbarigia explained: “As far as employment figures are concerned, almost 117,000 workers are involved in the audiovisual sector. Compared to the 2021 data, an overall dynamic of +4.7% was recorded. Self-employment is the item that registered the highest result (+9,8%), followed by outside employees (+8,6%), administrators (+2,4%), employees (+0,6%), in contrast to the substantial stagnation of entrepreneurs."

The Report on National Audiovisual Production was completed by APA in collaboration with various research institutes, amongst them eMedia, Ce.R.T.A - Centro di Ricerca sulla Televisione e gli Audiovisivi dell’Università del Sacro Cuore di Milano, and Symbola.

The study can be seen here.