Finance Minister Has A Few Choice Words On Public Broadcasting

Michael Hedges November 18, 2020 Follow on Twitter

Public broadcasters occupy a special place within their respective country’s media space. In the best of times, they benefit from little outside interference and stable financing. Audiences are their masters. Step by step all of that has been shrinking. The current crices enveloping all media have made this all too visible. The attention has risen to the top.

A message went out from Italian Finance Minister Robert Gualtieri to the supervisory board of public broadcaster RAI last week. It’s time for "a serious rethinking of (the) company and its organizational model,” reported by Il Fatto Quotidiano (November 11). He mentioned “healing” and “catching up with changes.”

RAI has been a formidable force in the Italian media sphere. In recent times, particularly since the Berlusconi era, it has been a honeycomb of political fiefdoms, plum jobs met out to party appointees. While the radio and television output remains robust, various political interests have been reasonably satisfied. The ranks of top executives and board members have grown considerably.

Later Minister Gualtieri stepped back from calling for a new set of directors, seen as assuaging political resistance. This lets RAI director general Fabrizio Salini off the hook, for now. Ahead of the annual directors meeting (November 11) Sr Salini announced in an internal memo that RAI is meeting “gender balance” guidelines. One recent appointment was Maria Pia Ammirati, a former RAI employee, as director of RAI Fiction four months after Eleonora Andreatta left for Netflix Italia. RAI Fiction produces about 500 hours of scripted content for RAI’s three main TV channels, not to forget that new streaming service, altogether 70% of all Italian TV content.

In the memo he said he would name new company directors and deputies. That is contentious because of the number of directors and deputies, allocated to each RAI political province, adds weight to the salary schedule and, on topic, they tend to be all male. All costs are at issue, as they are everywhere.

Minister Gualtieri seems disinclined to pull €85 million in stability funding from RAI at the end of the year. Private-sector radio and television broadcasters have received €105 million from that fund. The entire Italian media sphere is suffering under pandemic-related economic distress: i.e. less advertising revenue.

“I can confirm,” he said, “that in the context of the next Budget Law, a provision has been inserted that provides that this last amount is reallocated to RAI itself.” He reiterated the financial state at RAI: "a consolidated loss of €43 million, with a foreseeable consequent further worsening of the net financial position, despite the fact that for 2020 the costs that RAI would have had to incur for the ceased European football championships that were not held due to the coronavirus. It seems to emerge,” he continued, ”that, in the face of an economic trend with net results with a contained but stable loss in recent years, the financial structure shows a deterioration.“

He wasn’t finished: “The economic problems of RAI not only reflect the economic downturn, but reveal structural problems that require a review of the industrial plan. The trend towards a structural increase in license fees must commit the company to present a serious plan that rationalizes the structures for a prospective balance between revenues and costs, also with attention to the dynamics of employment that does not penalize RAI's ability to be attractive.”

"Information will also have to be rethought. In addition to the correct need to represent in a pluralistic way all the opinions and points of view, even the most critical ones, of Italian politics, it is necessary to invest in the ability to investigate and tell the great issues of the changing world around us. The public service mission must also be rethought in this perspective with more ability to network with other major European broadcasters and other major publishers to tell and represent the potential and expectations of Italy and other countries Europeans united in the European Union. If it is true that we are going through a phase of extraordinary global changes, we cannot fail to think that our largest cultural company must not only heal itself, but also keep up with the changes, accompany them, tell them and even anticipate them.“

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