Giovanni Minoli, a former executive at Italian pubcaster RAI, on December 15 was appointed general director of digital TV operator Stream. At Stream, which is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Europe (NCE), Minoli will oversee production and pay-per-view programming, in a position that had been vacant since NCE acquired a 35 per cent Stream stake last May. Stream’s other shareholders are state telco Telecom Italia, with a 35 per cent stake, TV and film conglomerate Cecchi Gori Group (18 per cent) and the SDS consortium of four football clubs (12 per cent). Thanks largely to its new first-division football coverage Stream has more than doubled its subscribers from 150,000 in July to 370,000.