PRESS RELEASE

RAI: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY - PUBLICIZING SALARIES IS GOOD, BUT DISTINCTION BETWEEN COMMERCE AND PUBLIC SERVICE SHOULD COME FIRST

Without this distinction there are real risks of market distortion. Report submitted to the Minister for Economic Development and the Parliamentary Oversight Committee.

Mandatory public disclosure of the salaries of hosts, guests and columnists and the format production costs in the credits following radio and TV programs is important for ensuring transparency in public broadcasting, but competition-distorting effects are unavoidable if such programs are not clearly distinguished from RAI's commercial activities. This is the essence of the Antitrust Authority report submitted to the Ministry for Economic Development and the Parliamentary Committee that oversees radio and television services.  
The Antitrust Authority had already made various appeals for a clear-cut distinction (in terms of proprietary assets, organizational profiles and management and financing methods) between radio/television activities that are clearly commercial and public services that are fundamental for ensuring informational pluralism. This distinction, however, has yet to be made. Despite understandable needs for the open assumption of responsibility and transparency in public broadcasting, mandatory salary disclosure would create an overt asymmetry in the television sector that could reduce RAI's competitiveness, especially in terms of acquiring and retaining human resources.  
RAI, in fact, is the only operator that would be required to disclose detailed cost breakdowns that represent extremely sensitive information from a commercial point of view. To require salary disclosure by all television operators would also be unfeasible - the conditions under which active television businesses generate their products would be framed in an artificial and over-generalized manner, thus laying the foundation for market behavior that would be detrimental to competition.

Rome – 07th July 2010