Category Archives: agcom

Why hasn’t the left done more about Berlusconi’s conflict of interest? Part 2

A second argument, also used by Ginsborg, is that they didn’t do more because they were afraid it would be unpopular. That is, many centre-left politicians reasoned something like this:

anyone who would support our taking action against Berlusconi is likely to vote for us anyway; but
there are a large number of people who would oppose […]

Italian TV coverage unbalanced

Communications watchdog Agcom says that information on television is unbalanced in favour of the government and the parties that compose it. Yawn.

Agcom opens a case against Rai

The sectoral watchdog Agcom has opened a case against Rai for presumed violations of the broadcasting law (legge Gasparri) in the ongoing Travaglio case. The authority cites two grounds for their decision: the commitment to protection of fundamental rights (article 4), and the commitment to honouring the service contract (article 48).
I find it hard to […]

The par condicio bites

The first signs that the par condicio - the law on equal distribution of screen time during electoral campaigns - is beginning to bite came today. The sectoral regulator Agcom invited Porta a Porta (RaiUno) and Matrix (Canale 5) to give the Radicals a chance to appear on screen; the ever-gracious Bruno Vespa immediately responded […]

How much information is complete information?

The Italian communications watch-dog Agcom has told Rai and commercial broadcasters to give more coverage of the campaign to call a referendum on the current electoral law. The instruction is binding, though any penalty could easily be evaded; but what possible (non-normative) justification can Agcom give for this? Let’s say Agcom finds out that […]

Rai’s Director-General

Utterly predictable ruling from the Italian communications watchdog Agcom: Rai director-general and former Agcom employee Alfredo Meocci is found to have violated Agcom’s rules by leaving Agcom to work for Rai, which Agcom regulates. Professor Alessandro Pace submitted a brief to the Rai administrative council on just this issue, but the centre-right members of this […]