ITsArt, Franceschini: "we tried to involve RAI, but it did not participate"

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism had sought to involve Rai in the creation of the ITsArt platform, the so-called “Netflix of culture.” Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said this yesterday at a hearing before the supervisory committee.

“We tried to involve RAI first with informal contacts,” the minister recalled, “then on June 1 my chief of staff wrote to the CEO of RAI, asking RAI to want to take part in the activity related to the creation of the platform. A reply came on June 19 from CEO Salini saying that they intended to communicate RAI’s support for the initiative. As a result of this willingness, and the fact that obviously the ministry was not, is not and will not be an organizational part of this fact (as the rules stipulate, the ministry has no role in the enterprise), an agreement was signed on July 23 between Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and MiBACT, and from that moment all choices passed to CDP, which set up a company, which made a tender to choose the private partner in total autonomy. We verified that RAI had also been invited, but RAI decided not to participate in that tender, and from that moment all the management and management choices were all handed over to the company that was formed, which as you know is called ITsArt, which has CDP as a partner and a company that won the tender, Chili. It is absolutely necessary that the public side and especially the political side stay totally out of this initiative, which must have a commercial spirit and total autonomy.”

“If you ask me for an opinion,” Franceschini added, “I think it is absolutely useful for RAI to be involved.” On why RAI did not want to participate, the minister was clear and reported that public television preferred to back out since it could not distribute and sell events not produced by it. However, Franceschini still hoped that there could be RAI's involvement in ITsArt in the future.

ITsArt, Franceschini: "we tried to involve RAI, but it did not participate"

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