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SAT-ITALY - 4.10.1996


                ITALIAN SATELLITE AND MEDIA NEWS - 4 October 1996

TELE+1 LOOKS TO FUTURE
Italian pay-TV network Telepiu will continue to transmit its channels both
in analogue mode (via terrestrial transmitters) and digitally (via
satellite), according to Mario Rasini, one of its directors. He also
announced that the total number of subscribers stands at 800,000, out of
which 17,000 are subscribed to the digital satellite service DSTV which is
transmitted via the EUTELSAT II F1/HOT BIRD 1 satellites. Telepiu plans to
invest 700 billion lira in the next three years for the development of
digital services.
During last season, Telepiu's movie channel Tele+1 broadcast 440 new movies,
but like last year, the channel will not offer solely movies. The director
of Tele+1, Piero Crispino says they have the exclusive TV rights to show the
Golden Globe awards, the Oscar awards as well as the Italian movie awards,
David di Donatello.
The attraction of the new schedule will certainly be "Set", the movie
journal which will be broadcast daily (unscrambled) at 20,40h. From October,
every Friday at 20,40h Tele+1 will offer its subscribers "Cinegiornali" with
movie trailers. Thursdays at 22,40h, viewers will be able to see "Ritratti
d'autore", a special program with interviews of famous Italian moviemakers.
Other new programs include "Caro diario" (Saturdays and Sundays 18,00h) with
behind the scenes footage of Italian movie productions and "Crossroads"
(Sundays at 14,00 and 20,15h) which will show movie music clips.
Finally, subscribers will be able to see many recent movie releases among
which "Pulp fiction", "Interview with a vampire" and "L'uomo delle stelle".
Tele+1 also plans to offer from next spring a pay-per-view and
near-video-on-demand service for it's satellite subscribers, with viewers
being able to choose movies and pay individually for each. 
Tele+1 is broadcast digitally as part of the DSTV package since the
beginning of this year.   

ITALIAN TV FOR ALBANIA
Telenorba, the most watched local Italian TV station has recently started
terrestrial re-transmissions in Albania. The owner of Telenorba which
operates out of Bari and is seen in the provinces of Puglia, Basilicata,
Molise and Calabria, a few months ago signed a ten-year agreement with the
Albanian government, beating Berlusoni's Mediaset in the process. Luca
Montrone was granted the frequencies to transmit Telenorba's programs
throughout Albania as well as a concession for gathering advertising on
Telenorba and government-run channel TVSH. The agreement stipulates that
besides re-transmitting Italian programs, Montorone will invest in
co-productions and all news programs will be in the Albanian language.  
The channel has access to 50 transmitters and 13 relays which cover 80% of
the Albanian territory (around 3,5 million people). Telenorba was founded 20
years ago and currently has 250 with revenues of 25 billion. Montrone also
owns interests in the publishing, advertising and distribution industry.

RAI TO INVEST IN CARTOONS
During the Cartoombria festival that was held recently in Perugia, Paola de
Benedetti, vice-director of RAI announced that the state run TV network was
to start producing feature cartoon series, after a hiatus of several years.
She announced that RAI has already started production on several new cartoon
series, which will be realized in cooperation with other European partners.
With French partners, RAI will produce 26 episodes of "The adventures of
Sandokan", with an option for 52 episodes. The majority of the drawings will
be realized in Italy, with some work being done also in Korea. "The princess
Sissi" is to be filmed in collaboration with American and French partners,
with 52 half-hour episodes being produced. French money will also be
involved in the series "Blackbeard the pirate" and "Carrot", while "Yolanda,
the daughter of the Black pirate" will be realized in collaboration with Spain.
The production cost for filming 24 half-hour cartoon episodes is around 3,5
billion lira. However, these costs can be covered by selling the cartoons to
foreign markets and with merchandising.
Next year, during the Christmas holidays, RAI will transmit "The black
arrow", loosely based upon the novel by Gianni Rodari. However, this
Christmas, viewers will be able to see Nick Park's cartoon feature "Wrong
trousers" which was awarded an Oscar in 1994.
RAI has confirmed that it still holds exclusive Italian rights to Disney
movies and cartoons, as well as the rights for New World and Hanna-Barbera
cartoons.


SELECO TO MAKE DIGITAL DECODERS
The electronics company Seleco which is the major manufacturer  of color TV
sets in Italy has announced plans to start producing digital
receivers/decoders. This project will be a joint-venture with two other
Italian companies, Italtel and Friulia and they will also produce
high-definition projectors and video walls. The joint-venture Seleco Italtel
Multimedia will be located in Pordenone and projects  revenues of around 190
billion by 1998, with 60% coming from production of decoders.
The new digital receivers/decoders will face competition on the
international market from giants in this field such as Sony, Samsung and Nokia.

NEW LAW WILL ELIMINATE VIOLENCE ON TERRESTRIAL TV
Italy's new Telecommunications bill which has been approved by the Council
of ministers on July 25, is currently being examined by the Senate. One of
the articles of the new bill that has been provoking a lot of comment is
Article 9. It reads "It is forbidden to transmit in clear TV programs which
could influence the psychological and moral development of minors, which
include scenes of gratuitous violence or of pornographic nature, which could
provoke intolerant behavior based on race, sex, religious or national
discrimination". This in fact means that in the future only pay-TV channels
will be able to transmit programs of violent or pornographic nature. 
Italy's only pay-TV operator Telepiu up till now has not transmitted
sexually explicit material, and it will be interesting to see if in the
future, they resort to this measure (dully authorized by law!) in order to
boost subscriber figures.

AUDIENCE FIGURES FOR SEPTEMBER
Here are the audience figures for Italian TV channels for the month of
September 
RAI UNO	22,32%
CANALE 5	20,07%
RAI DUE	14,67%
ITALIA 1	12,33%
RETE 4		10,09%
RAI TRE	9,57%
TMC		2,39%
Other channels	8,56%

Most watched programs (in millions)
Miss Italia '96 (RAI UNO)			10,775
Formula 1 - GP Italy (ITALIA 1)			9,005
Anteprima Carramba che sorpresa  (RAI UNO)	7,601
Movie: Ghost (CANALE 5)			7,495
Movie: Home Alone 2 (CANALE 5)		7,249
Movie: Leathal Weapon 2 (RAI DUE)		6,933
Sotto il cielo di Roma (RAI UNO)			6,890
Movie: Leathal Weapon (RAI DUE)		6,797		

TV BLAMED FOR FALL IN FOOTBALL ATTENDANCE
Italian television channels have been blamed for the fall in attendance
figures at football matches. The football stadiums are emptier week by week,
which can also be blamed by the fact that League matches are played on
Saturdays as well as Sundays. Figures speak for themselves - after the first
four rounds, the number of spectators has fallen by 33,804 in comparison to
last year which in fact means that revenues are also down - 300 million lira
to be precise.
On the other hand, the audience of sports programs on TV is on the constant
increase. "Quelli che il calcio", RAI Tre's Sunday afternoon sports program
with 34% of viewers share has confirmed its leadership in this slot,
paradoxically aired at the same as league matches are being played. The
situation is the same in the evening slot when sports programs "Domenica
sportiva" and "Pressing" are reporting an increase in audience.
Massimo de Luca, director of sports programs at Mediaset says "There is no
correlation between football on TV and the fall in match attendance's". It
is true that only 20,000 people have so far subscribed to the pay-per-view
service Telecalcio which transmits live all league matches, but it is also a
fact that TV has a very big role in scheduling football matches. Also, a
fall in attendance is evident not only at league matches but also at
Champion league matches which may signal a saturation effect upon football fans.

SELECTION OF PRIME TIME MOVIES NEXT WEEK ON ITALIAN SAT-CHANNELS
Monday 7 October
ITALIA 1, 20.30h - Kickboxer (USA-89) starring: Jean Claude Van Damme
RETE 4, 20.40h - Frankie and Johnnie (USA-91) starring: Michele Pfeiffer, Al
Pacino
RAI UNO, 20.50h - The client (USA-94) starring: Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones
ITALIA 1, 22.30h - Big trouble in Little China (USA-86) starring: Kurt Russell
RETE 4, 22.50h - Falling in love (USA-84) starring: Jane Fonda, Robert de Niro

Tuesday 8 October
ITALIA 1, 22.30h - Robocop (USA-87) starring: Peter Weller
RETE 4, 22.55h - Tucker (USA-88) starring: Jeff Bridges

Wednesday 9 October
ITALIA 1, 20.30h - Raiders of the lost ark (USA-81) starring: Harrison Ford
RETE 4, 22.30h - Scenes from the class struggle in Beverly Hills (USA-89)
starring: Jacqueline Bisset

Thursday 10 October
RETE 4, 20.40h - Sleeping with the enemy (USA-91) starring: Julia Roberts
ITALIA 1, 20.30h - Fortress (USA/AUS-92) starring: Christopher Lambert
RAI TRE, 20.30h - The hudsucker proxy (USA-94) starring: Paul Newman, Tim
Robbins

Friday 11 October
ITALIA 1, 20.30h - Dragon: the Bruce Lee story (USA-93) starring: Jason
Scott Lee
RAI UNO, 20.50h - Born Yesterday (USA-93) starring: John Goodman, Melanie
Griffith, Don Johnson
RETE 4, 22.30h - Prince of the tides (USA-91) starring: Barbara Streisand,
Nick Nolte

Saturday 12 October 
RETE 4, 22.30h - Arthur (USA-81) starring: Dudley Moore, Lisa Minelli, John
Gielgud

SPORT ON SATELLITE
9.X - RAI DUE, 17.25h - Football: EC qualifiers (Under 21's) ITALY-GEORGIA
9.X - RAI UNO, 20.25h - Football: WC qualifiers ITALY-GEORGIA

RAI TRE TO SHOW SUBTITLED MOVIES
Every Tuesday at the strange time of 01:20 hours, RAI TRE will be showing
foreign movies with the original soundtrack and Italian subtitles. Next
Tuesday, October 8, RAI TRE will air Hitchcock's classic thriller "Foreign
Correspondent" (with an additional 25 minutes added). It will be followed in
the following weeks by 5 Martin Scorcese masterpieces - "Raging bull",
"Alice doesn't live here anymore", "New York, New York" (for the first time
in Cinemascope and in the integral version of 164 minutes), "King of comedy"
and "New York Stories". This will in fact be one of the rare opportunities
for Italian viewers to hear the real voices of stars such as Robert de Niro,
Jerry Lewis and Liza Minelli.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAI UNO - EUTELSAT HOT BIRD 1, 11.366 GHz/V
RAI DUE - EUTELSAT HOT BIRD 1, 11.449 GHz/V
RAI TRE - EUTELSAT HOT BIRD 1, 11.532 GHz/V
CANALE 5 - INTELSAT 602, 11.173 GHz/H
ITALIA 1 - INTELSAT 602, 11.137 GHz/H
RETE 4 - INTELSAT 602, 11.010 GHz/H
TELEPIU DSTV - EUTELSAT HOT BIRD 1, 11.283 GHz/V (MPEG-2)
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