White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 7The difficult relationship betweenItalian cinema and television is alsoconfirmed by analysing the year ofproduction of films broadcast bynational networks. As we see in Figure21, generalist television devotes a gooddeal of room to what we may define asclassic films, i.e. films produced up tothe 1970s, which account for over 60%of total Italian films broadcast. Classicfilms receive a large number ofshowings on television, proof thattelevision audiences seem to be keenon the more traditional image of Italiancinema.Even if we consider more recentproductions (2000-2005), the situationdoes not seem to improve much. Onone hand, in recent years the numberof television premieres of films on thegeneralist networks has fallen and, onthe other, the vast majority of films(66%) are scheduled at secondary timeslots, such as night, late night orafternoon.The television network that showsmost Italian films is RAI 3, but hasrelatively small audiences, whereas thebest audience figures are obtained byCanale 5. This difference in resultsdepends on the type of film broadcastand the time of showing. While RAI 3shows films with a greater culturalcontent mainly after 11 pm, Canale 5(like RAI 1, although to a lesser degree)shows more Italian films during primetime, especially those which wepreviously defined as domesticblockbusters. This kind of product, infact, seems to guarantee televisionstations fairly predictable audiences,since they rely on a cast of well-knownactors (who often also work fortelevision), excellent results at the boxoffice and the capacity to attract a largeaudience uniformly distributedthroughout the country.As far as pay-TV is concerned,considering only 2005, Italian filmshave a small average share (around19%) of the total films broadcast bypay-TV networks. The percentage ofItalian films shown, however, variesgreatly with the type of channelconsidered. On the contrary, more thanhalf of the Sky Cinema Classicsschedule is devoted to Italian films; thischannel is followed by others, whichseem to place greater trust in domesticproducts, such as Happy Channel, SkyAutore and RaiSat Cinema World;Italian films shown on these channelshave a share ranging from 20 to 30%of total films.Like generalist television, pay-TVsoffer more space to classic Italian films,i.e. those produced before 1999. Classicfilms are a very high percentage of thetotal films shown especially onchannels – such as Sky CinemaClassics, Happy Channel and RaiSatCinema World – which broadcast thelargest number of Italian films. Theonly exception is Sky Autore, which in2005 was the second channel in termsof the number of Italian filmsbroadcast, of which 83% consisted offilms produced since 2000. Inpercentage terms, Sky Cinema 1 (likeSky Cinema 2, which shows the sameprogrammes an hour later) is thechannel with the largest share ofrecently made Italian films (99%). Thisfigure is hardly surprising since thestrategic mission of the channel inquestion is to give films their televisionWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 179