Court rules against RAI scrambling

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Court rules against RAI scrambling


The Council of State, the highest Italian legal-administrative body, has ruled that the channel encrypting by the public service broadcaster RAI is illegal. This marks an important victory for Sky Italia; RAI had been encrypting certain programmes on Sky’s satellite platform including newscasts and important exclusives such as the Italian national football team’s matches.

The ruling confirms the decision taken by the Lazio regional court in 2012 that ruled in Sky’s favour and against which RAI appealed: but the court ruled that as a public service broadcaster RAI must respect the technological neutrality principle and guarantee equal distribution conditions in the TV market.

Distributing the content just on TvSat, a free-to-air digital satellite television platform launched by the joint venture between RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media, is not sufficient (its signal does not even cover every area). The courts also noted that Sky does not get any substantial financial gain from the broadcasting of RAI programming.

In 2009 Sky offered €350 million for the right to broadcast certain premium channels as well as RAI’s FTA channels. Shortly after, RAI began encrypting some FTA broadcasts.

 

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Sky wins RAI encryption dispute
September 4, 2013 07.30 Europe/London By Chris Dziadul

Italy’s Council of State has ruled that that the channel encrypting by the public broadcaster RAI of certain programmes on Sky’s platform, including newscasts and exclusive Italian national football matches, is illegal.

The Council of State is the highest legal-administrative body in the country and its decision confirms one by the Lazio regional court in 2012, which also came out in Sky’s favour but RAI appealed.

Both courts said that RAI must adopt a neutral attitude on all the various platforms considering that it is a public service broadcaster and that Italian TV tax is also mandatory for Sky’s subscribers.

Distributing content only on TvSat, a free-to-air digital satellite television platform launched by the joint venture between RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media, is not sufficient as its signal does not even cover every area.

The courts also noted that Sky does not obtain any substantial financial gain from broadcasting RAI programming. The decision is a major blow for RAI, which in fact rejected an offer of €350 million by Sky in 2009 to broadcast certain premium channels, as well as RAI’s FTA channels.

Shortly afterwards, the public broadcasting began encrypting some FTA broadcasts.