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ITsART

Country: ITALY

Place:

ONLINE PLATFORM https://www.itsart.tv/it/ https://www.itsart.tv/it/?hl=en-IT

Period/duration:

PERMANENT

Promoter

The initiative is promoted by the Ministry of Culture and the platform is managed by a company that is partly public (Cassa Depositi e Prestiti for 51%) and partly private (CHILI Spa for 49%)

Aim

The mission of the "ITsART" platform is to promote the excellence of Italian culture and art in the world.
The platform's ambition is to become the leading Italian digital platform in the live streaming and on-demand distribution of content representative of Italian culture, facilitating the meeting of supply and demand.

Scope

- Italian art and culture
- Streaming

Target-group

All

Short Description

The online platform ITsART was created on the initiative of the Italian Ministry of Culture as a tool to promote and disseminate the excellence of Italian art and culture worldwide. It was realized with 'Next Generation EU' funds and is managed by a company with a public majority.
The impulse for the emergence of such a public platform stems from the difficulties in the enjoyment of Italy's cultural heritage that emerged during the pandemic period. The backwardness in digitisation of many cultural institutions and the absence of adequate digital channels of dissemination has in fact often made it impossible for people confined to their homes to enjoy this heritage. The economic damage to the entire cultural and arts sector has been enormous and could have been limited by a higher degree of digitisation of cultural offerings.
ITsART's intention is therefore also to respond to this situation by trying to put Italy's cultural heritage online and by facilitating the encounter between producers and users. The name "ITsART" derives from "Italy is Art" to express the international perspective of the initiative and the immense value that art and culture represent for Italy.
The platform hosts a catalogue of around 1400 contents available in live streaming and on-demand. The contents are divided into three sections:
● STAGE (music, concerts and dance)
● PLACES (museums, archaeological sites and territories)
● STORIES (films and documentaries)
Access to content is possible after free registration on the platform. Content is partly available for free (sometimes with advertisements), and partly available for rent on a pay-per-view basis. Once you have rented a piece of content, you have 28 days to watch the content and 48 hours from the moment you start watching it for the first time. It must be said that the lack of the option for a monthly subscription has generated much criticism and perplexities, as most of the popular streaming platforms allow a large amount of films and series to be enjoyed for a very competitive monthly subscription. This limitation of the ITsART platform therefore risks putting it at a strong competitive disadvantage in the market and reducing its attractiveness.
ITsART is available in the 26 EU countries and in the UK and can be accessed on Smart TV, web, smartphones, tablets.

Results

About a year after the launch of the ITsART platform, the results in terms of number of registered users (about 200,000) and in terms of economic return have not been satisfactory.
According to industry experts, the reasons for the platform's poor performance are due to the prices of the paid contents, which are on average higher than other platforms, the unavailability of the monthly subscription option, and a still limited catalogue.

Moreover, browsing through the catalogue one immediately realizes that there is a lot of paid content that instead is available for free on RaiPlay, the streaming platform of Italian public TV.

An Italian public digital platform that distributes streaming cultural content representing the excellence of Italy's cultural and artistic world is undoubtedly a good intuition. However, if it is to have a chance of succeeding, it must adopt a marketing policy appropriate to the Italian and international streaming market.