Petruccioli had two suggestions for Rai, but refused to go any further, pointedly noting that he’s already gone over his term as President of Rai, and it’s time for him to get back to being a normal viewer:

1. removing the figure of the director-general, and appointing a managing director [amministratore generale], capable of taking more autonomous action, instead of the current situation where there are 150 bosses who can only be moved with the consent of the board
2. ending the situation whereby the state directly owns Rai, which happened for the first time in 2004 with the passage of the Gasparri law [previously it was held by state holding company IRI]

The moderator was very kind about La7, talking about them as a third pole trying to plough the ‘quality television niche’(!), but it dawned on me, whilst looking through the latest Agcom report, that Sky’s presence is now much much bigger than that of La7 – they, not La7, are the terzo polo. Mockridge, incidentally, was extremely diplomatic, for the most part, but did make a reference to why News International in general preferred a free market in television, which for me implied that the current market was not free – but perhaps this is reading too much in to it.

Finally, Gina Nieri, in response to a comment by Melandri about the current state of the television market not being healthy, replied by inventing some figures about the UK television market, by claiming that the BBC had all of the licence fee, Sky had allof the pay-per-view market, and ITV had all of the advertising market – which, if it were true, would indeed make the Italian market look rosy.

Of course, it’s not true. ITV has around 40% of the television advertising market; Channel 4  has around 20%, and the remainder is split between Channel 5 and various others.

Had I not had to skip out, and had questions been allowed, I could have mentioned this. But so far at all events at the Festa that I’ve been too, no questions from the floor have been allowed. Boo.

• Albania
• Botswana
• Cape Verde
• Croatia
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Guyana
• Honduras
• Israel and the occupied territories
• Kiribati
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Namibia
• Panama
• Ukraine

These countries are doing something right. That’s to say, they score a one on fair elections, freedom of political organisation, and freedom of expression. But they’re falling behind in their media systems. As the coding schema for the Coppedge and Reinicke data-set puts it:

Alternative sources of information are widely available but government versions are presented in preferential fashion. This may be the result of partiality in and greater availability of government-controlled media; selective closure, punishment, harassment, or censorship of dissident reporters, publishers, or broadcasters; or mild self-censorship resulting from any of these.

(The countries in the data-set are scored using the US State Department’s Human Rights Report).

It is not uncommon to argue that Berlusconi’s business success is built on political connections rather than business acumen. The contrast between Berlusconi’s failure to make headway in the French television market, where he lacks such connections, and his dominance in Italy, is often cited as evidence. Yet it seems clear that such a politicised business strategy carries risks, and seems likely that such a strategy has now become a drag on the group. Mediaset share prices dribbled away their value in anticipation of a centre-left victory in April this year; further expansion abroad is now out of the question, and new markets (TV-over-IP) are less suited to political rent-extraction. The only chance for media entrepeneurs now is to lock customers in through, in Andy Kessler’s terms, better pipes; content that forms a unit capable of locking in viewers/browsers. And, although Berlusconi was quick to spot the potential of American soaps like Dallas (Rai had the option on the second season and dropped it; Berlusconi picked it up and made it the centrepiece of one of his channels), original content is not Mediaset’s strong suit.

Significance:
Public broadcaster Rai and private corporation Mediaset – owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – enjoy a de facto duopoly over Italian television. Each has three of seven national terrestrial channels, and their advertising affiliates control over 90% of all television advertising. The law requires each organisation to move one channel to digital terrestrial television (where no organisation may own more than 20% of the market), and sets a limit of 45% on advertising sales. Mediaset’s advertising arm, Publitalia, currently enjoys a 62% share (source: RepubblicaRadio).

By attacking the commercial interests of Mediaset, the government opens up a political debate with Silvio Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia and his centre-right coalition, the House of Liberties. Berlusconi has attacked the law as “banditry”.

Timetable:
The design of the law approved yesterday forecasts the transfer of one Rai and one Mediaset channel within ‘fifteen months’ of the law’s passage. Passage through Parliament, however, may be difficult for the government, which enjoys an extremely narrow majority in the Senate. Whilst the government is unlikely to face significant problems within its own ranks, it may be vulnerable to procedural obstacles placed by the opposition.

Obstacles to implementation:
This is not the first time that Rai and Mediaset have been ordered to move channels to digital. A previous reform, which also set limits on publicity, was over-turned by a 1995 referendum. Berlusconi has already called for a referendum should Parliament fail to block the bill.

Beneficiaries:
Should the law pass, and should two analogue channels become vacant in spring 2008, it is unclear who would wish to take up two national channels with only four years before digital switch-over and the shut-down of the analogue network. The most immediate and significant impact of the law would be to damage commercial prospects for Mediaset and Rai. Mediaset shares have dropped 1.5% this morning; their performance over the past three months has been dismal.

‘The editorial assembly “made clear the concerns raised during the meeting, amongst which the clear knowledge that a historic period for this news programme has finished, and the uncertainty that surrounds its future”‘

Its unclear whether the historic period refers to a founder of Tg5 leaving, or the end of the government of Tg5’s ultimate patron. Perhaps this is the time when differences over Mediaset’s treatment of the elections will come to the fore.

At the moment, prevention of anti-competitive positions in the media market is governed by the provisions of the infamous 2004 Gasparri law. The Gasparri law (here in English) followed a much stricter 1997 law, according to which no single subject could control more than 30% of the television market. The Gasparri law abolished this restriction: no single subject may now control more than 20% of the entire media market – the so-called Integrated Communications System, or SIC. The problem is, no one knows quite how big the SIC is, and there was more than a sneaking suspicion at the time of the passage of the law that the SIC was a legal fiction designed to protect Berlusconi’s media empire.

(There’s a wonderful passage in Sabina Guzzanti’s film Viva Zapatero! which deals with this.
“Let’s take the example of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has a dominant position in the world of soft drinks. To stop Coca-Cola from being dominant, I extend the definition drink to all liquids, like whisky, river water, sea water, ocean water – then I say: “look at all the water in the world, Coca-Cola is no longer the dominant liquid”)

But almost two years after the passage of the Gasparri law, the communications watchdog has still not rendered a judgement on the size of the SIC, or whether anyone has reached 20% of the SIC. According to this March press release, the communications watchdog is ’shortly’ to arrive at an estimate of the size of the SIC. Will this estimate be consequential?

This wikipedia article gives no source when it claims (1) that the total value of the SIC is €87 billion and (2) that the absolute value of the 20% limit is more than the absolute value of the previous, 1997 limit. If both are true, then it looks unlikely that Mediaset’s control over the SIC is in violation of the Gasparri law.

At the same time, there has as yet been no definitive judgement – so a safe, technocratic (but only partial) solution to the problem is still possible.