Great ratings but watch out for the share trick

Of course, this edition of the Festival is an undeniable success with the public. Viewers of all ages appreciate it. And rightly Amadeus and Rai celebrate. However, even when everything is going well, perhaps there is no need to exaggerate and make improper comparisons with previous years. The question is this: how is it possible that the share (ie the percentage of listeners on the total audience that watches TV) soar so high when the number of viewers decreases? The first evening reached a 62.4 percent share with 10,757,000 spectators: 154,000 spectators less than last year when the debut had achieved 54.7 percent. An even stronger gap is evident in the second evening which lost 775,000 spectators compared to the same evening in 2022, but with a share that reached as much as 62.3 percent. This gap is mainly due to the fact that the evenings are very long this year (even more than in 2022), so spectators go to sleep and the average number of people who watch the Festival is lower. But there is also another question. Auditel, the ratings surveying company, changed the calculation method this year. Put simply, the data of unrecognized TVs, called other TVs, was separated from the overall audience. In short: using the old Auditel system, the share of the first two evenings would have been different and probably lower. Therefore, comparisons cannot be made with past years, declaring “that it is the best audience since 1995”, as done by the Rai top management. Big plays yes, but let’s face it.