Italy report released: after non-reforms, all eyes on Berlusconi
EUMAP and NMP announce the launch of another report in the series, TV across Europe: Follow-up Reports 2008. The country report on Italy is especially topical in light of Silvio Berlusconi's election victory of 14 April.
Following the re-election of Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister, the question of media reform will return to the centre-stage of political attention in Italy.
Tackling the problems of Italy’s broadcasting sector (probably the most monopolised in western Europe) was a priority for the centre-left coalition that won the April 2006 elections. Yet the attempts by Romano Prodi’s government to establish constitutional and European principles in law did not bear fruit. The fate of these initiatives is now uncertain at best.
The broadcasting market is stagnant, due to the extraordinary level of concentration. The two largest operators, RAI and Mediaset, still command around 85 per cent of both the audience and TV advertising. Political influence over RAI, the public service broadcaster, and political bias in the Mediaset channels, have not been addressed.
The report calls on Parliament to introduce antitrust provisions for the analogue television market, in order to stimulate competition and ensure that digitalisation will not strengthen the current duopoly, which is so harmful to media independence and pluralism in Italy.
