Streaming and Pay TV: Every Italian Family Has an Average of Three Subscriptions
Streaming and Pay TV: Every Italian Family Has an Average of Three Subscriptions
Every Italian family lives with an average of three subscriptions between streaming and Pay TV, but a significant portion of those services sits idle. This is certified by a survey commissioned by Facile.it to the research institute mUp Research, conducted in March 2026 on a sample of 1,001 individuals representative of the adult population aged 18 to 74.
The issue comes to the forefront with the summer of the World Cup, which this year is taking place without the Italian national team. Many fans are already considering how to organize themselves to at least watch the upcoming tournaments on TV, and between sports, series, and paid movies, the map of active subscriptions is becoming increasingly crowded.
The starting point is the wide diffusion. At least one subscription is held by 82.4% of respondents, a percentage that is already very high and exceeds 90 in two subgroups: 91.5% in the 25-34 age group and 91% in families with minor children. Paid streaming has, in short, firmly entered homes, especially where there are young adults and children.
However, usage remains largely domestic. Almost 86% of holders state that they use the service only within their own household, while 800,000 people admit to sharing it with others. The sharing follows different trajectories: 600,000 share it with non-cohabiting relatives, 80,000 with friends or neighbors, and, interestingly, 120,000 with people they do not know at all. This behavior reflects a drive for significant savings during a time when the prices of the most popular services have seen repeated increases.
Spending and Waste
Behind the sharing is almost always the desire to cut costs. The average monthly spend amounts to €27.50, but the amount swells in some segments. Men exceed €30 while women remain below €24.50, parents of minors reach €31.72, and topping the chart is the 35-44 year age group, with an expenditure of €31.86 per month. This translates to an annual sum of €382.32.
The gap between the subgroups is not negligible. There is a difference of over five euros a month between the average expenditure of men and that of women, while the presence of minor children pushes family spending well above the general average. It is precisely the younger households with children, already the most inclined to subscribe, that bear the highest costs.
Things get more complicated when the survey digs into actual usage. Just under 11% of subscribers, equivalent to nearly 3 million people, do not know how much they pay each month for the active services. Even more significant is the figure on real waste: about 7.5% of those interviewed, or 1.9 million Italians, state that they do not regularly use the subscription they continue to pay for, or they have several active subscriptions with some that are completely unused. This threshold, applied to the overall pool of subscribers, equates to millions of euros paid each month for content that is never accessed.
The picture that emerges is that of a mature market but poorly monitored from the consumer's side. The diffusion has reached saturation levels, and yet awareness of spending lags behind: between those who are unaware of the billed amount and those who pay for services never opened, a significant portion of subscribers lacks real control over their entertainment budget.
This misalignment weighs heavily just as the pressure to add new services grows, compounded by a busy sports calendar and ongoing price adjustments. Before adding another subscription to the cart, it is wise to take stock of those already active and cut unnecessary duplicates: the first saving is often already at home.