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The European Commission has concluded that the subsidies for digital decoders granted by Italy in 2006 do not violate EC Treaty state aid rules (Article 87(1)). In reaching this decision, the Commission considered the fact that the subsidies were offered for all decoders, regardless of the transmission platforms. In essence, the subsidies were technology-neutral and proportional to the objective of promoting the transition to digital TV and interoperability. However, subsidies granted in 2004 and 2005 (see IRIS 2006-2: 6) did not pass the test of technological neutrality, they were found to have...

On 12 July 2006, the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Communications Authority - AGCOM) adopted an amendment to the Regulation on advertising (see IRIS 2001-9: 11), prohibiting the increase of the volume levels of advertising messages being broadcast during breaks in programmes. This new provision was implemented on 10 October 2006 when AGCOM defined the first urgent technical parameters to be respected by all national and local broadcasters and on all platforms (terrestrial, cable and satellite). This issue is of importance to Italian broadcasting, both on public and on private channels....

On 19 July 2006, the European Commission issued a letter of formal notice in respect of Italy’s alleged breach of the EC rules on electronic communications set out in Directives 2002/21/EC (the Framework Directive), 2002/20/EC (the Authorisation Directive) and 2002/77/EC (the Competition Directive). The Commission’s decision to initiate an infringement procedure follows a complaint from an Italian consumers’ association ( Altroconsumo ) concerning the Italian regulatory framework governing the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting established by Law no. 112/2004 (the “Gasparri” Law -...

In the course of 2006, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (CM) adopted a number of country-specific Resolutions in the context of the Second Monitoring Cycle of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM). The Resolutions focus on the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia and contain a number of provisions concerning the (audiovisual) media (for similar provisions in earlier country-specific Resolutions, see IRIS 2006-2: 4). In respect of the Czech Republic, the CM recommends, inter alia, that the authorities take “additional...

On 22 March 2006, the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Italian communications authority - AGCOM) adopted an Action Plan concerning the management of frequencies for digital terrestrial television broadcasting. The first aim is to amend the existing regulatory framework for the assignment of spectrum capacity on the multiplexes (see IRIS 2001-4: 9), according to which independent content providers benefit by law from a 40% quota of the DTT capacity available on the multiplexes managed by the different network operators. This is to be achieved by introducing a transparent selection procedure...