Italian Television: Public Service

1
Italian Television Public Service Commercial
Enterprise

• by Roberto Giannatelli, Professor at the
  Salesian P. University
• President of the MED, Italian Association for
  Education to Media and Communication

2
Introduction

• January 3, 1954
• Television becomes a daily component in the life
  of the Italian families
• Television public service initiates

3
Introduction

• The television
• has strict connections with economic,
  ideological and political interests
• brings with itself a world vision
• influences the needs and expectations of people
• has educational effects not inferior to those of
  the school
• is an authentic "parallel school"

4
The Television Set is More Than Just a Home
Appliance

• After the 50s - the refrigerator, washing
  machine, and television have entered Italian
  homes.
• But the television is not only an appliance that
  makes life more pleasant.
• It is something more complex. It is related to
• Technology
• Society
• Culture
• Education

5
The Television Set is More Than Just a Home
Appliance

• The television is only a "means" that needs to
  be managedwith wisdom according to ethical and
  educational criteria.

6
The Television Set is More Than Just a Home
Appliance

• Television contributes to the formation of
  collective consciousness.

7
The Television Set is More Than Just a Home
Appliance

• September 11
• The collapse of New York Citys Twin Towers
  has become a symbol of the tragedy and the
  insecurity of our times.

8
A Bit of History

• January 3, 1954 - Television arrives in Italy
• few hours of daily transmission
• black and white images,
• only one television network
• as a public service managed by state company RAI.
  
• 1961 - A second channel opens.
• 1975 - Color television (in France, 1969).
• 1977 - Third national network

9
A Bit of History

• Italian ( European) television was pedagogical
  television
• It aimed
• to inform
• to educate (to do culture)
• to entertain

10
A Bit of History

• It was a determining factor for the modernization
  of the country.
• Italy passed from being an agricultural to a
  strongly industrialized country in less than two
  generations.

11
A Bit of History

• The breakup of Italian television systems
  equilibrium happened in 1975.
• The Court recognized the constitutionality of the
  case of the emerging private and commercial
  television networks.
• Thus the first commercial television networks
  were born.

12
A Bit of History

• Telemilano, the first cable television of
  Berlusconi begun in 1974 and will subsequently
  become Canale 5.
• The ascent of the Group of Silvio Berlusconi,
  one of the most important commercial television
  networks of Europe, begins and has three national
  television networks (Canale 5, Italia 1, and Rete
  Quattro) other than its publishing and commercial
  enterprise (Mondadori) and its advertising arm
  (Publitalia).

13
A Bit of History

• The RAI conforms itself to the standards set by
  the competing networks.
• Television programs became commodities to be
  sold.
• Television buys audience to sell to
  advertisers. - Len Masterman

14
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• We speak of
• an American model of commercial television that
  has dominated the panorama of Italian (and
  principal European countries too) television for
  twenty years.

15
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• It is financed totally (Mediaset) or partially
  (RAI) from the resources of advertising.
• The objective is profit.

16
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• It is a continuous 24-hr television
• It is a television that consumes an enormous
  amount of audiovisual production
• (a single network burns around 8,000 hours of
  transmission annually).

17
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• It is global. It depends to a large extent on
  international audiovisual markets (Los Angeles,
  Cannes, )

18
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• It operates in a competitive system which does
  not mind the quality but the quantity of
  audience.
• It measures quantity not quality.
• In Italy we speak of the dictatorship of Auditel,
  a system of quantitative measurement

19
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• The SHARE decides the life and death of
  certain television programs.

20
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• The specificity of programming genres are lost.
  The genres merge.

INFORMATION
ENTERTAINMENT

INFOTAINMENT

21
Characteristics of Neo-Television

• It homogenizes and brings down the qualitative
  level of programming.
• Neo-television orients us toward thematic
  television that multiplies the number of channels
  destined to diversified public and, naturally,
  income. Television becomes more and more a
  commercial fact and less and less a public
  service.

22
Who Pays? Three Models

• Public Monopoly
• (1954-1975)
• Public and Private Duopoly
• (RAI and Mediaset)
• Abundance Model
• (Pay-TV, Pay-Per-View)

23
Who Pays? Three Models

• In public service television, the citizen holds
  particular rights that are recognized
• In commercial television the televiewer is a unit
  of consumption and a potential consumer of goods.
  
• Television financed through network or specific
  program (Pay-TV, etc.) subscriptions offer
  packets of prepackaged programs and channels
  that answer to the interests of individual
  persons or families who pay the service.

24
Who Pays? Three Models

• The future is also of the new technologies
• Television, radio, cellular telephone and
  computer will speak a unique digital language.

25
Television and Minors Regulation and Education

• In Italy the government has not given faith to
  Media Education
• Instead, it has promulgated two codes of
  self-regulation
• Television and Minors, 2002
• Internet and Minors, 2003

26
Television and Minors Regulation and Education

• However the codes are not enough.
• Media Education does not limit itself to the
  protection of minors it is not a strategy of
  defense but rather of offense
• critical autonomy
• media competence
• a sense of citizenship

27
Television and Minors Regulation and Education

• The media are only tools.
• Making them good or evil
• Making them contribute to his happiness or
  failure depend on the intentions of man, on his
  ethical sense.

28
Television and Minors Regulation and Education

• A word of responsibility must also be given to
  the producers of television programs.
• Above all public service must commit itself to
  produce educational programs adapted for children

29
Quality Television and Media Education

• two necessary conditions to effect the best
  communication between broadcasting stations and
  citizens, and to produce programs of quality

30
Quality Television and Media Education

• Formation of Communicators
• "Communicators must seek to communicate with the
  people, and not merely talk to them. They have to
  learn to know the real needs of the people, to be
  informedabout their struggles "
  Pope John Paul II

31
Quality Television and Media Education

• Education of Recipients
• "The media are the entry tickets of every man and
  woman to the modern market place where the
  thoughts are expressed publicly, where ideas are
  exchanged, where news and information are
  received and circulated. - Pope John
  Paul II
• Media Education leads today's young people to
  purchase the "entry ticket" to the public forum
  of our society represented by the media.