ROMA – First the arrival of Maurizio Crozza (way back in 2017). Then Fabio Fazio (broadcast on NOVE from 15 October 2023). Now Amadeus, showman of Sanremo and Business of yours.
Discovery Italia – which is conducting its acquisition campaign especially to the detriment of Rai – is now coming out into the open aiming to become, permanently, among the editorial battleships of the country.
Property of a global entertainment giant how is “Warner Bros. Discovery”Discovery Italia has its strengths, but it also faces various difficulties on the ground.
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How many channels does Discovery Italia have?
Its channels are 17 (of which 12 are free). Discovery Italia also deploys a streaming platform (Netflix style), renamed discovery+.
What are your free channels?
They are NINE (where we see Fazio), Real Time (the one in Married at First Sight), DMAX, Giallo, Warner TV, MOTOR TREND, Food Network. And again: Home&Garden TV, K2, Frisbee, Boing and Cartonito.
What are your paid channels?
- Discovery Channel (visible on discovery+, Sky and Vodafone TV);
- Eurosport 1 e 2 (su Amazon Prime, Dazn, discovery+, Sky e TIMVision);
- Cartoon Network (su Sky)
- and Boomerang (also on Sky).
How is Discovery Italia positioned in the ranking of Italian TV publishers?
In its latest Observatory, which photographs the situation between January and September 2023, therefore before Fazio, the Communications Guarantor (AgCom) provides this snapshot. Discovery Italia:
- it is fourth in prime time (after Rai, Mediaset, Sky),
- has 1.36 million average daily viewers,
- and a share of 7.3 percent,
- but it is third for the whole day with 680 thousand average spectators,
- and a share of 8.4%. Before her, only Mediaset and Rai.
Has anything changed between September and today?
On its website, Discovery Italia attributes itself with a share of 8.2% in the 24 hours, in February 2024. Studio Frasi – cited by the Sole 24 Ore – assigns NOVE an average audience share of 3.3% in prime time. An important result for Discovery Italia’s flagship network. NINE’s aggressive pace now leads it to undermine the positions of Rete4 and RaiDue.
What is its positioning in terms of turnover?
In this case, the AgCom snapshot – relating to 2021 – is certainly not recent. Every year, AgCom calculates the overall revenue pie of the communications sector in Italy. The cake is renamed Sic. Therefore AgCom also calculates the impact of each publisher (television and otherwise) on this pie. In the now dated photograph of 2021, Discovery Italia is only tenth with a revenue percentage of 1.2% of the total revenues in Italy (after Rai, Sky, Fininvest, Google, Meta, Cairo, Amazon, Gedi and Netflix).
What happened from 2021 to today?
The analysis company Nielsen estimates that Discovery Italia will have an audience of 8.53% in 2023 and an almost identical advertising share (7.7%, equal to 255 million). In January 2024, Nielsen also recognizes that Discovery Italia has seen a surge in advertising revenue of 18% in a television market that is only growing by 3.8% (source: Italia Oggi). The months of January and February 2024 close with advertising revenues close to 42 million and a growth of 22.4%. Furthermore, Discovery’s audience is younger than that of other broadcasters: 52-53 years old versus 60.
Why does Discovery Italia hire Fazio first and then Amadeus?
These two artists – after years of visibility and success – boast a community of admirers who tend to follow them from one channel to another. Hiring Fazio thus entailed a copious transfer of ratings from Rai to Discovery Italia. In October, up to 74% of the Rai audience moved to NOVE, on the occasion of Fazio’s Sunday broadcast (source: Corriere).
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Do individual artists, however famous, guarantee a stable multiplication of listeners and turnover?
After Fazio’s successAmadeus can transfer its experience and vision to many parts of Discovery Italia’s schedule, in one role almost like an artistic director. Obviously the increase in turnover and net profits comes from a more complex strategy that Discovery Italia and its parent company are trying to implement.
How, concretely?
Discovery has free and paid channels, visible on different platforms and with different technologies. It therefore competes for advertising and subscribers with the most diverse competitors in the field. Rights holders of the Paris 2024 OlympicsDiscovery and “Warner Bros. Discovery” will provide 8 new Eurosport channels to Sky (in addition to Eurosport 1 and 2), where you can follow the demonstration. One will be in 4K. From 2026, Discovery Italia will be able to relaunch the challenge to Netflix thanks to the contents of its other streaming platform, Max (those of the Succession series).
Is being part of “Warner Bros. Discovery” an advantage for Discovery Italia?
It’s an important advantage. Just look at the site www.discovery-italia.it to identify, in the Discovery Italia channel offering, the many programs and formats that come from its parent company. The strength of “Warner Bros. Discovery” and of Discovery Italia can further increase if a further aggregation were to gain traction. A dicembre 2023, “Warner Bros. Discovery” e Paramount they discussed a possible merger. The deal stalled in February 2024. In 2023, “Warner Bros. Discovery” had a turnover of $41.3 billion.
Is “Warner Bros. Discovery” also strong in cinema?
Its production studios have churned out hits such as Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, most recently Barbie and Aquaman 2.
What is the main difficulty that Discovery Italia has to face in our country?
Among others, it has to deal with the strong concentration of resources held by Rai and Fininvest, the result of the duopoly season. Again according to AgCom data for 2021, Rai is first in terms of revenues of the SIC pie (with 13.5%) and Fininvest is third with 10.3%.
How many employees does Discovery Italia have?
We are talking about an agile structure, which has only 256 employees (INPS data). Element that positively affects the cost structure.
Who are the key managers of Discovery Italia?
Among other figures, the CEO Alessandro Araimo (formerly Fininvest); Massimo Ghedini, the advertising man (formerly Manzoni and RCS); Angela Saporiti (who oversees the accounts as CFO); Elena K. Santambrogio (head of human resources for all European countries of the TV group); and Laura Carfoli, who manages the content portfolio, both free and paid.
#Discovery #Amadeus #Olympics #aiming #hub
– 2024-04-18 13:39:57
