15 June 2005
ITALIAN LAW FAILS TO CURB MEDIA CONCENTRATION: OSCE
Italy's broadcasting market remains highly concentrated despite a law passed last year to regulate television, says the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media.
In a report released a year after Italy adopted the Gasparri Law in June 2004, Miklos Haraszti says the new law is "likely to reproduce" rather than lessen media concentration in the country. More than 90 per cent of all television revenues and audiences in Italy are controlled by the privately owned company Mediaset and by the public broadcaster RAI.
The RAI-Mediaset "duopoly" deprives Italian audiences of an effective variety of information sources and weakens the guarantees of pluralism, the OSCE expert argues, adding that the situation has become politically aggravated because Fininvest, a holding company owned by Berlusconi's family, is a major shareholder in Mediaset.
Berlusconi indirectly controls a vast number of media companies in Italy, including three of the country's eight nationwide TV networks, the Mondadori publishing group, two daily newspapers, and several weekly publications.
The Gasparri Law was intended to increase competition in the TV market by switching Italy over to digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) from analogue. However, the legislation needs to be reviewed to correct provisions which maintain the present domination of television by two groups, says Haraszti.
The OSCE report echoes the concerns of the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, an advisory panel of legal experts that stated today that the Gasparri Law has led to the relaxation of previous regulations aimed at curbing media concentration in Italy.
Read the OSCE report here:
http://www.osce.org/documents/pdf_documents/2005/06/14949-1.pdf
Visit these links:
- IFJ Report on Italy's Media Crisis: http://www.ifj.org/pdfs/Italy%20Mission%20Final.pdf
- RSF 2005 Report on Italy: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13447&Valider=OK
- Council of Europe Venice Commission: http://press.coe.int/cp/2005/324a(2005).htm
- Call for EU Rules on Media Concentration: http://tinyurl.com/7glh7
- EIM Survey on Press Freedom in the EU: http://tinyurl.com/cw6b7
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