FormatBiz | Rai Fiction's Prison Drama Mare Fuori Sets New Record for the Italian Avod RaiPlay

The young adult, Naples-set prison drama Mare Fuori (internationally known as The Sea Beyond) has released the last six episodes of its third season on the Italian avod RaiPlay on Monday, February 13th, and it has already set record-breaking results: the series has been watched by approximately 12 million users in just one day, with a total of 5.7 million hours viewed in that time frame. These ratings are very significant, given that RaiPlay’s average audience does not exceed 3.5 million daily views. In addition to that, this marks February 13th as the new record day for digital content fruition in Italy, with Rai accounting for 83% of the total time spent on a streaming platform, according to the Italian audience data collector Auditel.

The series, watched by a really young audience (45% of its total is under 25 years old), returned with a third instalment on February 1st with the first six episodes and made the last six ones available last week. Unlike the previous two seasons, which were broadcast on the linear network Rai 2 and then put in second window on Rai’s free streaming platform, the third one received the opposite treatment: it was first made available on RaiPlay and then aired on the broadcaster’s linear channel on February 15th, with two episodes back-to-back every Wednesday on prime time until March 22nd. Its linear ratings have not been negatively affected by streaming fruition, still garnering a 7.2% average share and roughly 1.3 million viewers, almost doubling Rai 2’s average ratings for that time slot.

This choice helps explain the season’s extremely high on-demand ratings and shows that Rai made a good decision for its platform: only on February 1st, RaiPlay gained about 300,000 new subscribers and the first batch of new episodes scored 8 million views in one day, with more than 22 million visualizations during the first week. These figures, along with those of the second churning of episodes, provide an amazing result, as the three seasons combined have now reached over 54 million views and roughly 23 million hours of fruition.

Produced by Rai Fiction and Picomedia (Asacha Group) , Mare Fuori has become a pop culture phenomenon in Italy, where its first two seasons are also back in Netflix’s Top 10 list. Internationally, the series is already playing in more than 20 countries worldwide: a few examples include the Nordics, which broadcast it on the Swedish network TV4; Germany, where it is found on Disney+; Israel, airing it on the cable channel HOT; Turkey, on its streamer BLU TV; and Latin America, where the series is available on HBO Max. Beta Film is responsible for the series’ international rights, and is currently in talks with a yet-unknown U.S. channel to broadcast the Italian readymade program, while local remakes are already planned in France and in Spain.
Meanwhile, the fourth season of Mare Fuori is already in development, with Picomedia and Rai Fiction in talks for its fifth and sixth instalments.