Leghist deputies: Netflix of culture? There is already Rai Play, is it really necessary?

There is no stopping the discussion around the so-called "Netflix of culture," the digital streaming content platform under construction, strongly desired by Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini. There has been a lot of talk in recent days about rumors that the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism is negotiating with a private company, Chili tv, to set up a newco owned 51 percent by Cassa Dpositi e Prestiti and 49 percent by Chili and to which the management of the future platform should be assigned. The cost of the operation for MiBACT will be ten million euros, already allocated.

Now the debate lands in Parliament: four deputies of the League - Salvini Premier (Angela Colmellere, Sara De Angelis, Germano Racchella, and Luca Toccalini) have addressed awritten question to the minister essentially to ask whether the construction of the platform is really necessary and opportune. The Leghist parliamentarians start from two assumptions: the first is that “no additional details about the proposal have been made available: It is not known, in fact, who is taking care of the creation of the platform, who it is intended for, how much it will cost the state coffers in all, whether Recovery Fund money will really be used, who will take care of its the content, but above all we do not know the views of the creators of cultural content who, reading some reactions, seem anything but enthusiastic about the idea,” and the second is that “in Italy there is a public company that deals with the production, creation and distribution of cultural and entertainment content; this company is called Rai - Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.a., which is the exclusive concessionaire of the public broadcasting service in Italy and the fifth largest television group in Europe.”

Specifically, according to the Leghist deputies, a platform like the one the minister wants to start already exists: it is RaiPlay, “a portal,” the questioners write, “that according to the latest data has recorded important numbers: 4 thousand titles and thousands of hours of viewing, 600 documentaries, 256 theater titles, 300 music, drama films and series and content for young people that have been reached by at least 23 million people, of which at least 16 million are loyalists. All this with an important audience result: ”user data, then, says that half of RaiPlay’s audience is under 44 years old and 34 percent of its audience is under 34 years old, precisely the historically hardest target for Rai to reach."

According to the four deputies, therefore, “the idea of replicating a streaming platform that collects cultural multimedia content certainly appears to be a duplication compared to even, for example, the RaiPlay experience,” and the costs of the so-called “Netflix of culture,” minus those for original productions or for the rights of existing artistic productions, “would be very high even if one considers only those related to the conception and construction of the IT infrastructure, and those of promotion and marketing: precisely these expense items, on the other hand, would be at least largely absorbed by Rai’s accumulated history and experience and its in-house professionalism.” With regard to content access to foreign audiences, according to the deputies, "a form of pay-per-view payment on individual content or thematic areas could easily be experimented with, a possibility that can be easily implemented and with a possible good economic return."

Therefore, the questioners ask the minister if it is his intention to “clarify for what reasons he really believes it is necessary to design and build a new container capable of streaming Italian culture to Italians and around the world, considering that there already exists the public platform RaiPlay and the internal resources, Rai with a wide offer to disseminate the culture of our country that could be enhanced by promoting the possibility of access to Italian artistic productions abroad as well, mainly aimed at foreign users who do not pay the fee, who would have to pay to take advantage of some content.”

Leghist deputies: Netflix of culture? There is already Rai Play, is it really necessary?

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