In Italy there are over 400 TV channels, adding up those on digital terrestrial and satellite. Here is everything you need to know
What is the state of health of digital terrestrial and satellite TV in Italy? How many channels are available and who are the publishers? How many HD channels and how many 4K channels are available in Italy, and where to find them? All these questions are answered by the latest report by Confindustria Radio Televisioni, the Italian Association of companies in the audiovisual and radio media sectors.
The report’s data are updated in December 2019 and are almost entirely current even today: “413 TV channels in total can be received nationwide on the main platforms, and they belong to 125 publishers (national and international), 77 of which are based in Italy.” This is the situation of TV in Italy and of the channels broadcast, but it should also be pointed out that the calculation also includes “+1”, “+2” and “+24” channels, i.e. those that do no more than rebroadcast the schedule of the same channel one hour, two hours or 24 hours later (the so-called “time-shifted” channels). The calculation also includes the various HD versions, so the 413 TV channels available in Italy are actually quite a few less.
TV in Italy: digital terrestrial and satellite channels
The channels broadcast on digital terrestrial are 126, those on satellite are 286, the time-shifted channels are 24. Overall, we can say that the current landscape of Italian TV is still faithful to the setting that came out of the agreement between Sky Italia and Mediaset in March 2018, which led in June 2019 to the move of the Mediaset Premium platform from digital terrestrial to the Internet, on Infinity.
Italian TV: channels in SD, HD and 4K UHD
At December 2019 Confindustria Radio Tv counted 234 channels in SD standard definition, 112 channels in HD and those in 4K are 6: Rai 4K, Fashion TV, 4K1, NASA 4K UHD, My Zen TV 4K and Museum 4K. In January 2020, Traxelxp was added to the 4K channels. Today, those who are looking for 4K channels will find them almost exclusively on the free satellite platform Tivùsat.
Italian TV: free and pay channels
Along with the “duplicates” already described, 149 free channels (on digital terrestrial and Tivùsat) and 198 pay channels are broadcast in Italy. As many as 106 free channels are present on digital terrestrial, 191 pay channels are instead on the satellite platform (20 pay channels on digital terrestrial). Among the pay channels 72 are in high definition, 3 of which are on digital terrestrial, and 20 are in Super HD.