The national case: Italy
Mapping Digital Media: Italy
 Digital terrestrial television was introduced in Italy with
the adoption of the Digital Broadcasting Law in 2004.
 The switch-off of analog broadcasting started in 2009 and
is based on the progressive “digitization” of regional areas.
The deadline for the definitive switch-over from analog to
digital broadcasting is set for 31 December 2012.
 The transition to digital terrestrial radio (digital audio
broadcasting, or DAB) is taking place at a slower pace.
 Unlike television, it does not require analog switch-off .
Leading Sources of News
The national television news and traditional
newspapers are the most used media sources by Italians to
obtain news about politics, daily news, and relevant
personal news.
 80.9 percent of Italians use television news programs as
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their main source of information;
radio news programs, used by 56.4 percent of the
population;
daily newspapers : 47.7 percent;
periodical magazines: 46.5 percent;
Televideo: 45 percent;
web search engines: 41.4 percent;
information websites: 29.5 percent;
Facebook: 26.8 percent;
online newspapers: 21.8 percent;
“all news” television channels: 16.3 percent.
Poor Infrastructures
While more than 50% of italians in the age 14-29 gathers
information from internet sources, Italy still lacks a
reasonable amount of internet access for the population
because of the absence of cable infrastructure.
The country’s dependence on DSL results in one of Europe’s
lowest broadband penetration rates (around 50%).
It means Italy ranks 22nd between EU members and is the
last of the G7 members.
Print Media
Traditional newspapers are the media sector most influenced
by technological innovation and the global economic crisis.
In Italy, as all over the world, there is animated debate on the
crisis of newspapers. Leading newspaper groups were
certainly hit hard by the financial crisis since 2008.
Although these companies record an increase (sometimes
remarkable) in users of their websites, overall newspaper
sales have been in long-term decline, fuelling concerns
over whether professional journalism is financially
sustainable in the long term.
Average sales of the five main quality daily newspapers, March 2010
Traditional newspapers are gaining significant traction in
the internet environment. On average, the most visited
online editions of major newspapers are: Repubblica.it,
Corriere.it, Ilsole24ore.it, and Lastampa.it.
The increasing consumption of these major newspapers
online partly explains the slow decline in newspaper
circulation, which began before their online expansion. It is
worth nothing that in 2006, the fifth-highest ranking news
website was Varesenews.it, an online paper of local
information.
What is referred to as local online information is one of the
most important features of digital media with respect to
news diversity.
Television
The television landscape, including news, is dominated by
 RAI, the public service broadcaster;
 Mediaset, the privately owned broadcasting giant;
 Sky Italia, News Corporation’s satellite pay-TV broadcaster.
RAI
RAI continues to attract a very high percentage of the
national television audience along with its main
commercial competitor, Mediaset. On average during 2010,
RAI attracted 41.4 percent of the television
audience, while Mediaset commanded a 39.4 percent share.
This shared dominance of the national audience
has been relatively stable over recent years, with RAI losing
just 2 percent of its existing national audience
share since 2005.
The All-news Challenge
The main problem for Rai at the moment is the complete
lack of innovation.
Sky is doing great with SkyTg24, the most watched allnews channel in Italy and Mediaset just started its own
all-news channel – TgCom24 – which can be seen on tv,
on the pc and in any smartphone or tablet.
Rai instead still sticks with RaiNews, that receives low
funds and gives low audiences in return .
It’s unreasonable thinking about what could be done
having over 1800 journalists.
MEDIASET
The RAI–Mediaset duopoly is a fundamental feature of the
Italian television market, and results from the lack of
adequate legislation regulating the competitive landscape.
The duopoly, which had existed de facto
since broadcasting was opened to the private sector in 1975,
was legitimised in 1990 by a law which allowed
a single entity to hold three national licenses at the same
time.
SKY ITALIA
In July 2009, AGCOM announced that a third private
operator, News Corporation’s satellite pay-TV
broadcaster Sky Italia, had surpassed Mediaset in total
revenues for 2008. 41 Sky Italia’s high revenues derive
mainly from the annual subscription fees paid by a limited
number of people, whereas the other two broadcasters
derive most of their revenue from advertising.
Breaking the Duopoly?
In october 2011 Sky Italia announced they reached 5 million
subscribers. It’s a never before seen goal for a satellite pay tv
in Italy. In 2003, before Sky Italia, the number of subscribers
was less than 2 millions in total.
La7, the tv broadcasting owned by Telecom Italia, is rapidly
growing, especially thanks to Tg La7, guided by italian
journalism star Enrico Mentana, a former Mediaset figure.
With Mentana Tg La 7 reached over 3 million viewers,
battling with Rai moloch Tg1 and Mediaset’s Tg5, both with
around 5 million viewers.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Internet use in Italy has been marked by an increase in the
use of blogs and by consistent growth of the most
popular social networking websites, Facebook in particular.
Since the early 200s, the Italian blogosphere has been
characterized by its close attention to the world of
information; indeed, analysts have defined it as an
extension of the latter. The blogosphere, however, should
not be considered a source of news, because as bloggers
routinely update their blogs, they do not usually look for
original news items. Instead, they reframe and comment
upon news in the mainstream media agenda.
Social Networks
Italy’s social network world is ruled by one name:
Facebook. There are more than 20 millions accounts for
60 million people. Numbers say that 93% of italian
internet users have a Facebook account.
Twitter is growing too, but at a slower rate (and later
than in the rest of Europe) . At the end of 2011 more than
2 millions account have been created, with an average of
200 tweets per minute.
Media Today
The crucial point is:
Italy does not have a tradition of strong independence of the news media,
be they printed or electronic, public or commercial, from political
influence. “Political parallelism” is a structural feature of relations
between media and political systems Developments in the last five
years have further confirmed that the Italian news media even in the
digital era have to confront sustained pressures emanating from
political leaders and parties.
So what we have to do now is to remove this obstacle. On the one hand
undoubtedly exist more channels, more news providers, more voices,
but — given the constraints discussed in our report — they are
overtaken by the endurance of the RAI–Mediaset duopoly, at least
within the free-to-air television market.
Media Tomorrow
Accordingly, the scenario for the immediate future shows the presence of the “old”
determinants of the current state of things, and at the same time the definitive signs of rapid
technological change. The most dynamic changes are arguably occurring in mobile
technology. Given the large diffusion of mobile telephony in Italy, it is reasonable to forecast
a significant increase of technological and commercial investment in that direction. But the
role of telecoms in the new digital landscape remains unclear: will they limit themselves
largely to their traditional practice of providing networks or will they move further into the
slippery field of content distribution? Telecom Italia has already stepped forward into digital
television and the other companies might follow as well, should the media–politics complex
change.
Professional journalism is confronting a significant challenge from the web. The social
media are going
to be the main channels of information for ever-larger audiences, bypassing the mediation
of traditional
journalism. There will of course be concomitant new opportunities for the practice of online
journalism. But the passage to a new world of news-making is characterized by hesitancy
and reluctance to let go of the traditional print- and analog-centered thinking; this
perpetuates the failure to monetize online news and thereby off set revenue decline in the
print sector.