An explosion of listenings, up to over 15 million media, and almost 140.3 million hours viewed via the web. At the halfway point of the sixty days of quarantine, the TV is confirmed as the most faithful companion for the Italians forced home for the containment measures of the coronavirus. And if the trend seems to follow that of the contagions, with a progressive drop that has seen the lowest average audience of the entire lockdown period in the last week, it is the digital use that impresses, with the growth in consumption both streaming both on demand. It is the two-month story of #iorestoacasa through the analysis of the Auditel at the time of the coronavirus elaborated by the Phrase Study.
From the decree of 9 March to today, TV ratings have grown exponentially, especially in the first three weeks, reaching an average of 15 million 61 thousand viewers on the average day from 23 to 29 March, 48% more than in the same week of 2019. A trend somewhat parallel to that of the new infections: in particular, the peak - notes the Phrase Study - was recorded between 26 and 27 March, with an audience of 5 million above the average and over 6,100 new infected. From that moment the descent began: still today the average increase is over 3 million people over last year (+ 16%), but compared to the peak week, the latter just passed (4-10 May) marks a decrease of 3 million 307 thousand spectators and the lowest average audience of the nine weeks of quarantine (11 million 754 thousand).
A downward curve which was probably also influenced by the large number of replicas that the TVs fished in the warehouse to fill the schedules, taking into account the production stop. It is no coincidence that the ranking of the most viewed programs is now firmly in the hands of Tg1 in the evening (which boasts an average of 7.1 million viewers in quarantine, +2.1 million compared to last year), followed by Tg5 (6 , 1 million, +2 million). The reruns - Studio phrases still points out - seem to also have a negative impact on the social media posts of generalist television publishers for the benefit of the Over the Top (Netflix, Prime video, TimVision, etc.). According to Nielsen data, all the TV channels fell from 134 million posts in February to 87 million in April: in percentage terms, the posts dedicated to free TV decreased from 58% to 43%, while those of the platforms (from 6% to 18%, absolute record for these operators).
"At this point of the pandemic, the growth of television audience ratings is attenuating - comments Francesco Siliato, head of the Osservatorio Studio of the Phrases Studio - with the tendency to settle on the values prior to the quarantine, while the growth in consumption of Over the Top of online generalist televisions ". In general, in fact, it is booming for television viewing on the web, with a total of over 140 million 255 thousand hours viewed via the Internet. Rai dominates, with 57.6 million hours for the web offer, of which 41.1 million for on demand viewing and an average of over 13 thousand connected devices. For Mediaset, the total viewing hours are 43 million, of which 24 million on demand. Sky Digital News is the channel with the most clicks, over 591.3 million.