RaiNet

With over 1,500 websites on line (entertainment, information, service), the Rai portals have set a new absolute record in terms of traffic:
• a monthly average of 8.1 million single users, up 10% on 2010;
• 1,508 million pages visited, up 10% on 2010;
• 315 million videos issued on the Rai.tv platform, up 18% on 2010. 2011 was characterised by Rai’s increasingly consistent presence on the multimedia platform.

Besides the usual existing Rai management activities and offering and the enrichment of Rai’s offering on the Internet, RaiNet was actively committed to the elaboration of the new restyling project of Rai.it and Rai.tv, and of the new Rai.tv applications on tablet and mobile, the launch of which is forecast for January 2012.

Work on developing the offering on the new company-owned platform continued in 2011, with the concept and launch of new websites and the restyling of those already on line.

During the whole of the 2011, RaiNet intensified its daily activities and the upgrading of the Rai 4 portal, with the publication of videos of the programmes on air on the television channel, Promos were joined by the publication of entire series and datasheets on the film cycles, and, particularly for the cycle Missione Estremo Oriente a datasheet introducing the cycle and the datasheets of the single films envisaged were created. The new Rai Premium portal was launched in October 2011 and RaiNet is responsible for its daily upgrade.

Good work was carried out for Rai Movie, for which daily portal upgrade activities continued. Specials dedicated to and created by RaiNet were published for the Venice and Rome Film Festivals.

For Rai 5, in addition to the ordinary management activities and feeding of the portal, in the second half of 2011 RaiNet managed several special events. From 27 June 2011, Rai 5 joined the three general-interest channels in offering Rai.tv’s Replay TV, allowing its users to see the programming broadcast over the past 7 days. In December 2011 RaiNet released the new Rai 5 iPhone application. This is Rai’s first application which allows users to follow the live streaming of a channel.

Another important launch was that for Rai Cinema to coincide with the Venice Film Festival for which RaiNet launched the new portal. This is a RaiNet project and RaiNet is also responsible for the weekly upgrade (film datasheets, launch in hp, news, etc.), and work has begun on the launch of the English language version of the portal, envisaged for January 2012.

The success of the Rai.tv offering which now offers users live radio and tv, continued: live streaming of 16 TV channels, live streaming of 7 radio stations, the Replay TV services of 4 TV channels in addition to the generalinterest channels, Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3, with the addition of the Replay service for the Rai 5 channel from 27 June.

In on-demand mode, RaiNet proposed over 1,000 titles with over 100 in podcast mode, reaching a production of over 450 monthly hours of product on demand available on Rai.tv, organised by programmes and themes.

From September 2011, the coverage of programmes with major appeal during TV airing time was expanded, with the publication of videos of the programme and the upgrade of the website (Report, Che tempo che fa, Ballarò, Agorà).

As regards the multimedia publication of non-Rai projects, RaiNet followed publications for: Copeam, Italia Wave, Outdoor.

Rai.tv continued giving more space to live broadcasts of events not aired on the Rai channels during the year. During 2011, thanks to the Rai New Talents project, the Rai departments were given a new platform for the management of custom, flexible and easy to manage UGC contests, capable of meeting the needs of the Rai programmes.

Videochat appointments continued all year, the blog opening activity increased for the main programmes (Ballarò, Il più grande spettacolo dopo il week end), as did the opening of Twitter and Facebook accounts, by request of the departments.

As regards the Rai.tv page of Facebook, updates increase, also during the weekend and outside of working hours, with a significant increase in the number of fans registered on the page (about 200 thousand) the shares activated by users and, above all, the number of users who enter the world of Rai on the Internet through the Facebook page.

Following the release of the first iPhone application in December 2010, projects relating to the other iPhone applications were completed and released in 2011, for which the broadcasting design and content-related architecture had been completed in the second half of 2010. The releases of the mobile version of the website ww.rai.it and rai.tv’s iPhone application are in progress.

The iPad, the new tablet computer launched by Apple and capable of reproducing multimedia content and browsing the Internet, opened up a new market. The first presidia of the platform consisted of the launch of the free application Rai Mondiali Plus. This was followed by the release of applications for other operating systems, including Tg1, Tg2, Rai Community, RaiNews 24, Rai Sport, Rai and Tablet Android, and the Rai.tv iPad application release is in progress.

2011 was characterised by the enrichment and reorganisation of the broadcasting offering dedicated to children and the creation of different new websites on the Junior portal.

The proposal of a selection of the contents of Rai.tv continued on the You Tube Rai channel and the You Tube theme-based channels (Celebrity, Junior, Comedy, Culture, etc.).
With about 5,000 on-line contents and 500 new videos published every month, Rai.tv You Tube continues to be one of Google’s most successful channels in Italy. Great traffic results were obtained thanks to the performances recorded by the Rai.tv Video Portal, by Rai’s information, by the Rai channels (Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3, Rai 4, Rai 5) and by Rai Fiction. The average duration of the visits also grew significantly: 12 minutes and 09 seconds (+45% approximately on 2010).

During the last year, the five websites that received most visits were:
1 Rai.tv, with +17% on 2010 in terms of single users (and +24% in terms of pages visited);
2 RaiNews climbed one place, with +29% on 2010 in terms of single users (and +32% in terms of pages visited);
3 the Rai home page fell a place, with -5% on 2010 in terms of single users (and +10% in terms of pages visited);
4 RadioRai climbed one place, with +7% on 2010 in terms of single users (and +2% in terms of pages visited);
5 Televideo climbed one place, with +3% on 2010 in terms of single users (and +13% in terms of pages visited). The communication activity continued in 2011, with banner and television campaigns, focused particular on the launch of the single product or service (e.g.: Rai Replay. My Rai.tv, Rai Music, in-house self-promos), thanks to the close collaboration with Rai’s Promotion and Image sector.

The study and opening of web spaces and spaces on the major social networks, begun in 2009 and consolidated in 2010 continued. The most important activity was carried out on Facebook, with considerable growth of Rai.tv’s institutional profile: from 23,903 fans at the beginning of January 2010 to 176,258 fans (Likes) at the beginning of January 2012.

Given the constant growth in the number of users of the institutional profile, the decision was made to open official Facebook pages dedicated to the TV channels and radio stations of the Rai.tv portal and some of the most important programmes of the three institutional channels (Ballando con le stelle, Festival di Sanremo etc.).
The most important activity focused on the management of the pages dedicated to fiction (Caccia al Re, Tutti pazzi per amore etc.).
The pages are constantly updated with previews and contents published especially for the web.

Surveys and quizzes are the activities most popular with users, generating a considerable amount of interest.

The seeding activity begun last year on groups and pages linked to series and characters led, as assumed last year, to the effective growth of the relative official Facebook pages.