White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 8from “independent” companies (asdescribed above) is much larger as is theacquisition of foreign programmes to beadapted and films. As this brief picturereveals, however, original productionsare a disproportionately small part ofthe total hours broadcast. Thisdisproportion is further accentuated, ifwe exclude routine informationproduction and commercial services,such as telemarketing, home shopping,etc.The situation has been stronglyconditioned by the peculiar beginningsof the private Italian radio andtelevision sector and the specificfeatures of the state-owned RAI. As faras the latter is concerned, we can brieflysay that the company is not only literallyoccupied by the party political systemand its related patronage. The very useof the term “company” is paradoxical,since the original project madeprovisions for an internal competitivesystem (between its own channels) inaddition to – and even greater than –with players operating on the samemarket. This is further underscored bythe fact there are no overallmanagement figures who truly havemore powers than the independent(theoretically subordinate) individualchannel directors. There is also anotherparadox: the RAI receives revenue fromlicence fees for providing a publicservice, which should also actuallyinclude experimentation with innovativeprogrammes and a special attention toso-called “quality” programmes (a verydebatable concept because of theextremely subjective nature of valuejudgements on moral, aesthetic andtechnological aspects). In any case, thereis a strong pressure from the press andpublic opinion calling for RAI toachieve the same audience share as theprincipal private companies, accordingto a logic that “if it doesn’t interestanyone, why should we pay thelicence?” (although we could equallyreverse the logic: “since it can makemoney in the normal way fromadvertising, why should it receivelicence money?”). The fact remains thatthe Italian radio and television “publicservice” is much less of a specific welldefinedpublic service than most of itscounterparts in other Europeancountries. Moreover, if RAI operates asa creative industry, and it is certainlyone of the largest if not the largest inthe country, this takes place in a politicaland legal framework which does little tofacilitate its task, indeed, makes it moredifficult.As far as the private sector is concerned,after the end of the ultimatelyunsustainable public monopoly, theoccupation of frequencies by individualsand groups (the frequencies thenbecame their property thanks to belatedlegislation, which left many importantaspects totally unsolved) gave rise to asituation characterised by:• widespread problems oftransparency as regards ownership andthe relations between networks;• a widespread trend for localtelevision stations to make money byrenting the frequencies, or using themas a possible asset to eventually beplaced on the market.The frequencies market, however, isshrouded in uncertainty due to thetransition to digital technology. On onehand, it has led to the entry of newplayers into the sector and, on the other,WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 202