One million Italians cancel pay-TV in 2012

Italy’s pay-TV channels lost the largest number of subscribers in Europe in 2012, with one million Italians giving up on their subscriptions.

An annual report of the European audio-visual sector of the Council of Europe for 39 countries shows that pay-TV subscriptions also dropped for the first time in Europe as a whole – by 13 per cent.

According to the data however, Italy is the country with the greatest number of national TV channels, both pay-TV and free-to-air, provided on the various digital terrestrial platforms.

Italian viewers have access to a total of 118 TV channels, 67 of them free and 51 paid; followed by Latvia which has 85 (80 pay-TV) and the UK with a total of 79 and 71 being free, advanced-television.com reports.