Smart phones and tablets are
increasingly popular though television remains the most popular
media in Italy, according to the 12th media report carried out
by market researcher group Censis together with the Italian
Catholic Press Union and released on Thursday.
The report, which was promoted by state broadcaster RAI
together with private media conglomerate Mediaset and telecom
company Telecom Italia, also highlighted the growing use of the
internet and Facebook among young Italians.
Meanwhile the longstanding crisis of print journalism and
books continues, according to the survey, which highlighted a
deep rift in the country between the young and elderly in the
use of the web, especially to access services and to buy online.
Overall, internet users grew 7.4% in 2015 from 2013,
reaching a record 70.9% of the Italian population.
Nevertheless, the survey noted, only 5.2% used ultra-wide
band connections.
Meanwhile, the popularity of social networks has spiked
with 50.3% of the population on Facebook, 42% on YouTube and
10.1% on Twitter.
Television is used by an overwhelming 96.7% of Italians,
said the report, noting the growing popularity of new
broadcasters like web TVs - which boast 23.7% of users, while
42.4% watch satellite television.
The radio remains popular - for 83.9% - while the use of
smart phones continues to increase, up 12.9% with 52.8% of
Italians regularly using one, while tablet users have doubled in
two years and are today accessed by 26.6% of Italians.
Print journalism meanwhile has not registered a reversal in
the ongoing negative trend, with newspaper readers continuing to
decrease - down 1.6% on 2013 - while weeklies and monthlies have
managed to maintain their readership.
Online dailies and other online media outlets have grown
respectively by 2.6% and 4.9%.
After a significant crisis registered over the past few
years, books have also failed to recover - readers have gone
down 0.7% - and only 51.4% of Italians polled saying they read
at least a book over the past year.
Overall, the top five sources of information in Italy,
according to the survey, were newscasts - used by 76.5% - radio
bulletins - 52% - internet sources - 51.4% - news channels -
50.9% - and Facebook - 43.7%.
All-news channels have grown 34.6% since 2011, Facebook has
gone up 16.9%, smart phone Apps 16.7%, YouTube 10.9% and
research engines 10%, the survey also noted.
However, the hierarchy of news sources drastically changed
among young Italians with Facebook topping the list for 71.1%,
followed by Google for 68.7% and newscasts for 68.5%.
Another phenomenon highlighted by the poll was the growing
use of the internet for practical purposes, like looking for a
specific street or area - for 60.4% of web users.
Internet was also widely used to find information on
companies, products and services - 56% - followed by home
banking - 46.2% - and listening to music - 43.9% for the overall
population, which rose to 69.9% for the new generations.
Overall, 43.5% of web users - over 15 million Italians -
buy online with 37.1% of those polled saying they believe they
can save money and 32.8% noting it's less time consuming.
Nevertheless, only 17.1% of internet users turned to the
web to deal with public offices.
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