After the agreement on the Easter Friday between the fighting two of Italian television, the selling of Premium ‘Operation pay’ to Sky Italy is going to be carried out.
During the presentation of the new Retequattro in Rome, Pier Silvio Berlusconi implied that Mediaset is proceeding towards the transfer of Premium to Rupert Murdoch’s company. In fact, the Cologno Monzese group has obtained from Sky the right of option to cede to the satellite operator the entire participation in the R2 vehicle, 100% controlled by Biscione, in which Mediaset will previously confer the company’s sector of the Premium technological platform. Therefore, the “operation” field will be ceded to Sky, comprising also billing management, customer care, marketing and technology sector.
In the case of a successful transfer, the operation shall obtain Agcom and Antitrust approval and, however, it will not cause discontinuity to the Mediaset Premium’s activity which will continue to manage its own offer and customer base. Moreover, Berlusconi has clarified that in the future he will take into consideration a possible integration of the proposal with the Infinity streaming platform. In this way, there would be a downgrading of Premium as a pay tv, despite the current Mediaset’s will of keeping its channels under its own brand (cinema and tv series).
A further necessary consequence would be the refocusing of the Cologno Monzese group in the core business of free tv. In this sense, the principal bet is the renewed Retequattro which, despite being a broadcasting net, will distinguish itself for the focus on information and current events. The protagonists will be Gianluigi Nuzzi (Quarto Grado), Gerardo Greco (Tg4), Roberto Giacobbo (Freedom), Piero Chiambretti (La Repubblica delle Donne), Nicola Porro (Quarta Repubblica) e Barbara Palombelli (Stasera Italia).
