Italy introduces more content rules
January 29, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italian online broadcasters will soon be required to clearly indicate movies, TV series and documentaries produced in Italy in their online catalogues.
Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom) has mandated that broadcasters providing streaming services will have to include the indication of origin on all content (such as “Made in Italy’, “Italy” or “Ita”).
Services that will have to respect the new regulations include Infinity (Mediaset), Chili TV, Now TV (Sky Italia), TIM Vision and Vodafone TV. According to the regulator, the rules will also apply to OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, once Italy implements a European directive that regulates copyright issues.
AgCom has also introduced other changes to the existing regulations on European TV quotas dating back to 2017; TV channels that do not broadcast movies are no longer required to invest in Italian movies, but will still be subject to the minimum investment in European programmes.
For their part, national commercial broadcasters will have to increase investment in European independent productions from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent of annual net revenues from July, going up to 15 per cent in 2020.
The share of European programmes in the TV schedules of traditional broadcasters will go up from 50 per cent to 53 per cent, reaching 56 per cent in 2020 and 60 per cent in 2021.
VoD services like Netflix and Amazon Prime will have to reserve at least 30 per cent of their catalogue to European productions from the last five years. They will also have to invest at least 20 per cent of their annual net revenues in Italy for the production or purchase of independent European works.