Italian Content Investment Dropped 7.4% in 2025

Investment in content production destined for Italy’s film TV and streaming industries dropped 7.4% to €2 billion ($2.24 billion) in 2025, compared with the previous year, with the scripted sphere suffering most amid uncertainty over government support of the country’s tax credits and the ongoing transition in viewership from linear to streaming.

That is the main takeaway from a report issued on Wednesday by Italian TV producers’ association APA during Rome’s MIA market, which is dedicated to international TV series, animation, feature films and documentaries.

After reaping the rewards of a protracted growth spurt, Italian producers in 2025 faced a forced slowdown as the country’s right-wing government dithered with ongoing regulatory modifications to tax incentives for domestic film and TV production. The domestic tax credit modifications impasse did not impact Italy’s international production rebates, which remained firmly in place.

“This situation hinders producers’ ability to plan, increases financial burdens, and shrinks profit margins,” the report pointed out. “It negatively impacts all companies — especially smaller ones — by straining liquidity and limiting their capacity for future investment,” it added. Hopefully, there is some relief in sight with the new tax credit now in place. The so-called application “window” to apply has been reopened.

The report underlined that unscripted content remains the backbone of Italian broadcasting programming, with an output of over 17,000 hours of original, first-run content, being churned out by Italian producers last year. Independent production accounts for 59% of these titles. Unscripted offerings from streaming platforms in Italy have also expanded, with a 51% increase in the number of titles and a 30% rise in total hours.

Within Italy’s unscripted sphere, the factual genre has seen the most significant growth, up 36% in terms of number of hours, with the number of domestic factual titles adapted from international formats doubling. Game shows are also gaining ground on linear networks, both in early evening and primetime slots.

As for scripted originals, the number of titles in 2025 grew 9% to a total 101 shows produced for the current season. But this growth is driven primarily by 74 smaller domestic series for linear networks, that don’t tend to travel, while the number of Italian originals served up by streamers last year stands the same as 2024 with 27 titles, most of which are, similarly, “local for local” product.

The report underlined that Italian scripted content continues to reach broad and demographically diverse audiences. In the linear broadcasting sphere, Lux Vide’s “Sandokan,” a modern take on the classic pirate tale adapted from Italian author Emilio Salgari’s iconic book series, and BiBiFilm’s “La Preside,” about a feisty female principal of a school in a crime-ridden Naples neighbourhood, both drew a hefty average of over 4.6 million viewers per episode. In the streaming space, Picomedia’s Naples-set prison drama “The Sea Beyond” is still a big hit on state broadcaster RAI’s streaming and linear outlets, as is Aurora TV’s period drama “Il Paradiso delle Signore.”

The standout Italian original on Netflix is serial killer series “The Monster of Florence,” pictured above, directed by genre specialist Stefano Sollima that launched from the 2025 Venice Film Festival and garnered 9.7 million global views in its first week in October 2025.

Meanwhile, as in the rest of the world, the market share for linear television (both free-to-air and pay-TV) is steadily shrinking in Italy while global platforms continue to grow. The streaming segment, which accounted for 21% of the market in 2020, has now reached 43% in the Italian market and “is set to surpass linear television in value in the short-to-medium term,” the report said.

Also in line with global TV trends, microdramas are starting to gain traction in Italy with ReelShort, DramaBox, NetShort and DramaWave already among the country’s top 15 entertainment apps in terms of user spend, the report said. And the first original Italian microdrama production has been released, titled “Tutto in una notte,” produced by Fascino PGT, with its 54 episodes distributed on Italian platform WittyTV and on social media.