The European Commission has told Italian regulators to keep a close eye on broadcaster Mediaset, controlled by Silvio Berlusconi, and state TV RAI because they form a duopoly, a Commission spokeswoman said today. The Commission decided last week it has “no serious doubts” about a finding by Italian national regulator for electronic communication, AGCOM, that RAI and Mediaset “jointly dominate the analogue terrestrial broadcasting transmission market in Italy,” the spokeswoman said. The Commission did not publicly announce its findings until today, however.
In a letter, the Commission “invited AGCOM to closely monitor certain developments on the Italian market and also to further assess certain aspects, which support the conclusion of collective dominance.” Mediaset, the jewel in the Berlusconi family empire, and RAI carve up nearly 90 percent of the Italian television audience, making their dominance unique among European peers. Their stranglehold on the market has been criticised by press freedom groups and was partly responsible for it being ranked 42nd in Reporters without Border’s 2005 press freedom table - below Benin and El Salvador. Romano Prodi’s fledgling centre-left government that ousted media tycoon Berlusconi in April has pledged to “break” their control and allow more competition, but has not yet outlined how it intends to do this.
(Source: Reuters)
