VideoAge International October 2018

36 October 2018 V I D E O A G E I tal ian Television TV market is a very mature one, and the content market has become various and competitive. We are entering a phase where content consumption would be a key driver of growth for a wider range of companies.” “The main changes consist of the global offer thanks to companies such as Netflix and Amazon,” said Saccá, who produces films and TV series under his Rome-based Pepito Produzioni banner. “[These] have not yet affected the general viewers, but they are now deeply rooted in the elite public and young people. This has also pushed linear television to change. Think about RAI Play, which offers the same content as RAI linear television, but in a non-linear and very effective way.” “The most visible change has been the expo- nential growth of free DTT channels,” said Sala. “The most recent has been Mediaset Channel 20 and the rebranding of Mediaset Focus. Viacom has led the path with the launch of Paramount in 2016 and Spike channels in 2017. Similarly, Cinesony and POP launched in 2017. The number of free DTT channels is around 50. Of those, around 35 channels air U.S., European, and Italian dramas. The two- year trend has seen a constant increase in free-TV adverti- sing revenues. In fact, Italian free-TV advertising revenues, including Public TV license, amounted to 4.7 billion euro [U.S.$7 billion] in 2017, accor- ding to data from AGCOM, the Italian authority for telecom- munications.” At Mondo TV, Azoury said that in the last two years “we have noticed a huge change in production trends and acquisi- tions, with fast market growth for big players like Netflix and Amazon, and some new ways of watching television. This trend is increasing and will cre- ate space for new big players and for newly generated con- tent. We are happy to be part of this huge trend, as Netflix announced their collaboration with Aurora World and Mondo TV to bring Yoohoo to the Rescue as an original Netflix series on their platform early next year.” To Mediaset’s Caputi, the “big changes were prompted by the emerging large OTT players, which slowly but surely are changing not only the way we consume television, but also viewers’ tastes. One aspect of this is how TV viewers’ taste is migrating from watching films to preferring TV series, which are now attracting big stars and, in Italy, are spearheading the production of series based on theatrical movies.” Manuela Caputi, Mediaset’s head of International Sales (Continued from Page 34) Agostino Saccà, president of Pepito Produzioni, and Giuseppe Saccà, Pepito’s producer and adviser