In 2020, three TV players dominate the Italian traditional and new media sector in terms of annual turnover and audience share: Sky Italian Holdings (2,807 bln euros); Rai – Radiotelevisione Italiana, the Italian Public Service Media(2,488 bln euros); Mediaset, the Italian private broadcaster owned by the European Group MFE (1,801 bln euros). In 2021, in a medium day, Sky Italia (a satellite pay-Tv owned by the American Comcast Corporation), reached the 6.7% of of the national TV audience, Rai the 36%, and Mediaset reached the 31.9%. Between 2019 and 2021, the online supply by S-VOD (Subscription Video on Demand) international satellite digital platforms became strongly popular beside the traditional broadcasting television supply. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Dazn, Discovery+ are the major groups in terms of billings and audiences. In the context of free-to-air TV, it is fast growing even the audience of the Advertising-VOD online platforms.
The Italian anti-trust measures to prevent media concentration are stated in the legislative decree 208/2021 (see chapter 4.2.6). Art. 52-55 contain the measures to promote the European and Italian cultural diversity through specific obligations in programming and investing on production of European/Italian products defined and stated for the PSM Rai, for the private suppliers of linear audiovisual media services and for audiovisual media services on demand subjects to the Italian jurisdiction.
Law 220/2016 (“Rules and regulations governing cinema and audiovisual”) provides support for the production and distribution of Italian content. A ‘Fund for cinema and audiovisual’ is established every year (on the basis of art. 26) to finance tax credits, “automatic subsidies”, “hand-picked subsidies”. Tax credits legally recognized are related to production companies (art. 15), distribution companies (art. 16), cinema exhibition, technical and post-production industries (art. 17), film supply strengthening (art. 18), the attraction of cinema and audiovisual investments in Italy (art. 19), companies not belonging to cinema and audiovisual sector (art. 20).
Rai Cultura e RaiStoria are two thematic channels broadcasted and offered in online streaming channels by the Italian Public Service Media, focused on Art and Culture. Since May 2021, a digital platform free and on demand is operating in Italy: ItsArt, a joint venture between Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, a public law body, and Chili, an Italian private company (see chapter 3.5.3).
Data related to the balance between Italian original programs and imported ones (European or extra-European), within the overall annual supply by single channels such as by the national media system are not available. Researches about the commercial balance in the Italian audiovisual services traditionally highlight a clear annual aggregate deficit, with the recent exception of 2019, when a positive result was registered.
In the audiovisual industry, there is a wide and deep agreement about the industrial and professional role in affirming the Italian culture and economy, even in terms of valuable employment and of growing professional skills.
Italy did not put in place any new measures or policies to promote the diversity of cultural expression in the years 2014-2021, when users subscriptions to digital platforms and multinational companies supply in streaming have grown considerably. The main recent debates among media professionals did not bring into focus the relations between public/private broadcasters in the context of EU competition policies, nor the preservation of the digital content diversity.
Themes as censorship and auto-censorship are recurrent in the public debates on the media about all sorts of subjects. Measures that could be seen as restricting content diversity in what is produced by the journalistic profession and industry in the audiovisual and print media have never been taken into consideration in contemporary Italy. There are not specific training programmes for journalists to raise their awareness of culturally sensitive topics, in order to ensure the diversity of views.
In broad terms, cultural diversity and pluralism on themes as the women role in society and in the audiovisual professions focused in numerous meetings and debates in Italy. Culturally sensitive topics, in order to ensure the diversity of views, are also integrant parts of the courses in the Centro Italiano di studi superiori per la formazione e l’aggiornamento in giornalismo radiotelevisivo in Perugia, and of activities undertaken by the Ordine dei Giornalisti and FNSI – Federazione Nazionale della Stampa Italiana.
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