Sportitalia channels to go off air in Italy
October 31, 2013
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
After nine years on the air, the Sportitalia channels will stop broadcasting on November 1st.
Founded in 2004, the TV sports network of French-Tunisian businessman Tarak Ben Ammar was present on DTT with three channels – Sportitalia 1, Sportitalia 2 and Sportitalia 24. In protest, journalists have proclaimed a two-day strike, because as many as 35 of them have no certainty for the future.
The fate of Sportitalia was already marked since July 29th, when the Sportitalia channels were auctioned and bought by Rome-based thematic channel producer LT Multimedia, whose portfolio includes the channels Nuvolari, Marcopolo, Alice, Leonardo and Arturo.
In unison with the closure of Sportitalia, Italian media group LT Media plans to launch three sports channels (LT Sport 1-3) that will seek to replace the defunct broadcaster. The first channel will be dedicated to football, the second to Olympic sports and the third to motor sports.
Initially, the new channels will be available only on satellite (via the TivuSat DTH platform), as the DTT frequencies are still owned by Sportitalia.
However, due to the debts of the old company towards the Italian Football League, LT Sport will not be able to air the Serie A highlights, while for the Serie B it is still trying to reach an agreement.