| Canale 5
www.canale5.it
Italia 1
www.italia1.it
luca.tirsaboschi@mediafit.it
J
Television
j.tv@agora.stm.it
LA7,
TV Intl
www.la7.virgilio.it
la7@la7.tv
Radio
Televisione Italia (RAI)
www.rai.it
Rete
4
www.rete4.it
Telelombardia
www.telelombardia.it
Canale
5
www.canale5.it
Orbit
Satellite Television & Radio Network
www.orbit.net
press@orbit.it
Tele+
www.telepiu.it
info@telepiu.it
Telepace
telepace@tiscali.it
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Italy (population
56,300,000)
The public realm
of Italian broadcasting kicked off in 1954 with Raiuno, which was
supplemented by Raidue in 1961. In 1979 Raitre appeared, to provide
an alternative to the first Italian private operators, some of which
had been around for five years already.
Cable went national in 1981-2,
and in 1984 Rete-4 and Italia 1 were acquired by Canale 5 owner, Silvio
Berlusconi. Terrestrial TV in Italy is very eclectic,
with 13 national channels plus 10 or 15 local offerings available
in most areas. Across the board, 90% of viewing time is provided by
RAI (32%) and Mediaset (58%), but when national TV goes digital in
2006 we may see some changes; local providers will take over the analogue
frequencies.
RAI
The RAI is public sector, and
financed to the tune of 50% by licensing revenue and 30% through advertising
revenue. Programme sales, publishing, music etc. make up the rest.
RAI consists of 3 channels, 5x free satellite and 7x Pay-TV channels.
Information and culture are allocated 25.8% of viewing time, and entertainment gets 9.1%. Raiuno
is well-balanced, whereas Raidue targets younger audiences with
‘ad hoc’ transmissions, and Raitre provides the cultural element in
the bundle.
Mediaset
48.3%-owned by Fininvest (Berlusconi),
who also has also bought in recent years AC Milan, Medusa film distribution,
publishers etc., and an alarming portion of the Mediolanum Bank. Inter
Milan, incidentally
is owned by oil baron Massimo Moratti. eSCape tv will not be joining
the Mafia just yet, but Italia 1 (a youth channel) looks more promising
than Canale 5 (a mirror of Raiuno) and Rete 4, which targets elderly
housewives; they won’t say what with…
Mediaset provided 6% information and cultural
programming, and 18.3% entertainment in 2000.
In 2001 La7 was born. Formerly
TMC, La7 is intended to provide a contrast with the overwhelmingly
mainstream content of the duopoly, and may therefore be of particular
interest to eSCape tv. Sadly, however, Telecom Italia gained control
then Pirelli took over Telecom Italia, deciding to prioritise telecommunications
against television. La7’s future may not be as grim as it appears
at first sight (with just 3.9% market share in June 02). Enter
fairygodfigure (bad taste to use the other word in an Italian context?),
and Sky Italia rises from the ashes of Tele+ in mid-2002. Telecom
Italia retains a 19.9% share in this Pay-TV monopoly.
There are also 1000 smaller
private and local channels to be found, and digital satellite is on
offer from Stream and Tele+, although these Pay-TV operators are also
an endangered species, as often elsewhere in Europe.
15-20% of households have satellite,
and roughly 220 satellite channels use Stream or Tele+; Pay-TV has
netted about 10 million viewers, and there are an estimated 4 million
naughty access cards in existence. eSCape tv could do well in Italy,
due partly to the diversity of programming on terrestrial networks,
partly to the large number of satellite operators, and not least to
the fact that eSCape tv is presented in the Italian language, inter
alia.
Silvio Berlusconi has twice become prime
minister of Italy whilst retaining
ownership of Mediaset. In the interim preceding his second accession,
opposition failed to pre-empt or prevent a repeat of the same, but
this becomes less surprising when one considers the thoroughly partisan
history of Italian television from its inception.
RAI’s educational programming
was firstly relegated to late-night status then subsequently to satellite
diffusion following the wave of commercially-driven privatisation,
in order to compete with Mediaset.
Ultimately, both RAI and Mediaset
share the same objective, namely to keep each other in business such
that their duopolistic market share is well-protected. Italians, meanwhile,
do not seem particularly bothered by this situation, since they are
globally more interested in entertainment than niche market TV anyhow.
Italy is slow to move
to multichannel television (20% penetration at present), but terrestrial
TV is well funded by the government, and this makes one hell of a
difference.
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RAI
(public)
Raiuno 21.1%
Raidue
13.8%
Raitre
11.1%
Mediaset
(private)
Canale 5 22.4%
Rete 4 7.8%
Italia 1 11.5
La7 (independent) 3.9
Source: Auditel
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