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ITALIAN SATELLITE NEWS - 27 September 1996

TELECALCIO SUBSCRIBER FIGURES OUT
Italian pay-TV operator Telepiu has announced subscriber figures for its
pay-per-view service Telecalcio which started September 8. The total number
of subscribers as of 23 September stands at around 15,000 with around 500
new installations every day. Telecalcio offers two types of subscriptions -
for all 34 matches of one team (if the subscriber does not live in the area
of this team) or for the 17 away-leg matches. The total number of
subscribers for the first category totals 11,040 while 4,486 viewers
subscribed only to the away-leg matches. Viewers are mostly interested in
watching Juventus (with 4,023 subscriptions), Milan (2,585) and Inter (1,967).
Telepiu bosses seem more optimistic for the future in comparison to recent
statements. They are confident their DSTV digital package will have around
100,000 subscribers by year's end 250,000 by the end of next year. If they
succeed in reaching 100,000 subscribers this will mean revenue in order of
50 billion lira (Telepiu will have to give the teams 90 billion).

ONE IN FIVE CHILDREN TELE-CHOLIC
According to a recent study whose results were announced recently, 20% of
Italian children watch TV four hours a day.
The study was conducted by Istat and was realized during 1995 with 21,000
families throughout Italy taking part. It showed that 4,440,000 children
(96,8%) between the age of 3 and 10 years regularly watched TV with an
average time spent in front of the TV screen being 2 hours and 41 minutes a
day. 
Children in the age group 6-10 years on the average watch more TV (91,9%)
than younger kids in the age group 3-5 years (81,1%). Only a small minority,
precisely 4,1% said they never watched TV.
More than 90% of young viewers likes to watch TV programs specifically
targeted at them. School children have however varied interests - 42,2% like
to watch movies, 33,8% watch TV series, 25% prefer quiz shows and
entertainment programs, 14% like sports, 10.5% watch sports and 6.3% are
fans of news programs.
The time of the day when children watch most TV is late afternoon, with a
high proportion glued to the TV screen after lunch.

CINEMA FESTIVAL ON RETE 4
Good news for movie fans this autumn. Italian private TV channel Rete 4 will
again introduce the "Cinema festival|" slot, starting this Sunday at 22,30h
during which 40 award-winning movies will be shown (70% for the first time
on Italian TV). Every movie will be preceded with a four minute
presentation. The first movie that will be shown is "Before the rain"
(29.IX) winner of the Golden lion at the Venice film festival two years ago.
It will be followed by Spike Lee's "Jungle fever" (6.X), Michailkov's "Il
sole inganatore" (Italian title) (13.X), "Vanya" (20.X), "Kika" (27.X) and
"Lisbon story" (3.XI). Viewers will also see "Farinelli", "Short cuts" and
"Drugstore cowboy" among other titles.

ANTITRUST WARNS MEDIASET
The Italian Antitrust has warned Silvio Berlusconi's holding TV company
Mediaset for airing misleading ads. Mediaset had in fact Mediaset advertised
recent movies ("Braveheart" was especially mentioned) saying they would be
shown "soon" on its three channels - Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4. The word
"soon" in fact meant 18 months after the movies were shown in the cinemas.
The complaint to the Antitrust was made by a local cinema in Italy, and it
was upheld because by definition "soon" means "in a few days". Mediaset has
since suspended all such advertisements.
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