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Milan (pte013/06.12.2004/11:20) - The Italian Antitrust Authority http://www.agcm.it has suggested new ways to change the way Italy's television advertising market is run. Following an 18-month investigation, the Antitrust Authority have made suggestions that they can wrest away the hold that Mediaset and RAI have on the television advertising market, whose annual value is 4.5 billion euros. To date, over 90 per cent of the Italian television market is owned by two companies - Fininvest, which is owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and controls the television company Mediaset, and the state-owned broadcaster RAI. As the International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com reports, the agency can only impose fines if it proves that the two companies worked together to stifle competition.
According to the Antitrust Authority, the dominance of Mediaset and RAI is unrivalled anywhere in Europe. Mediaset owns three national television channels and has a 65 per cent share of Italy's television advertising market, while RAI, which also runs three national channels, has a 29 per cent of market share. The remainder is split between the two other national channels, which are both owned by Telecom Italia, and various other local broadcasters.
Although the findings of the investigation have been praised by Italy's three biggest newspapers, the Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Il Sore 24 Ore, and Berlusconi's political opponents, many people remain sceptical of whether the report can make a difference. "I have serious doubts that the problems connected to the duopoly of RAI and Mediaset can be resolved by an organisation like the Antitrust Authority that has no connection to the market," said Giorgio Simonelli, a professor at the Catholic University in Milan. "The Antitrust Authority is independent and does serious analysis, but in this industry there is a lot of speaking and very little doing," he added.
The Antitrust Authority has suggested that Mediaset and RAI should spin off their subsidiaries that operate the network of towers that transmit television signals across the country. It also proposes that television frequencies should be reallocated to make sure that the dominance of Mediaset and RAI is not increased when digital technology becomes more commonplace. The organisation has also said that RAI should be divided up into two companies - one offering public service broadcasting financed by a tax on television sets, and one that is financed by ad revenue. At present, RAI is financed by tax funds and advertising. "Some action has to be taken," said Simonelli, "otherwise the Mediaset-RAI stranglehold will never be broken."
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