Italian public broadcaster RAI has signed several deals with leading Italian media groups for the launch of new digital TV channels for Telepiu’s digital platform D+.

A preliminary accord was signed on September 27 in Rome by the president of the RCS Editori publishing group Cesare Romiti and his RAI counterpart Roberto Zaccaria. Also present were RCS CEO Claudio Calabi and RAI director general Pierluigi Celli. The goal of the joint venture, in which both groups will have a 50 per cent stake, will be the production of thematic satellite channels for D+.

The first project that will see the light of day, according to Zaccaria, will be a channel dedicated to "new lifestyles": fashion, entertainment and local customs. RCS will also acquire a minority stake in RaiSat (probably between 3 and 5 per cent), RAI’s subsidiary for thematic satellite channels, which was founded last year and will have its representative on the board of directors. RaiSat currently produces six thematic TV channels for Telepiu – Cinema, Art, Gambero Rosso, Ragazzi, Show and Album – and is set to launch five more channels by next January. RCS publishes Italy’s top news daily, Il Corriere della Sera, the top sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, plus a dozen popular weekly magazines. It also has interests in Germany, where it owns a stake of the Burda publishing group, and in Spain.

RAI’s president Zaccaria said the deal, with the biggest Italian publishing group, was very important. Romiti said that publishers must look to multimedia to expand their activities and that linking with pay-TV was a solution to the problem. He also announced that RCS would soon sign an agreement with Telepiu, with the possibility of becoming a shareholder in the pay-TV operator at a later date.

According to the president and CEO of Telepiu, Michel Thoulouze, the RAI-RCS deal "adds a further and significant element to the building of a large group which will be able to contribute to the development and diffusion of the digital market in Europe".

In a separate deal, on September 24 RAI signed a "letter of intent" with the publisher of the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore for the launch of a digital TV channel dedicated to financial news. The deal also provides for an exchange of stock: RAI will participate with a minority stake (between 20 and 25 per cent) in the company already set up by Il Sole 24 Ore to produce the channel, while the publisher will buy a similar minority stake in RAI subsidiary RaiSat. The new channel will be mainly aimed at the Italian market, with the possibility of later expanding to become a global service and will make substantial use of the Internet to provide additional services to viewers.

Finally, in conjunction with Florence-based group Giunti Multimedia, RAI is set to launch a free-to-air channel dedicated to issues and problems of disabled persons. Handy Channel will debut on January 1, 2000, with Giunti being responsible for the editorial content while RAI will take care of the satellite delivery. Total investments are expected to reach L15 billion (pounds 5 million) and the break-even point should be reached in three years time.

Initially, the channel will be on the air for three to four hours daily and the programme schedule will later be extended to between eight to ten hours.