The Public Service covers all the consolidated and emerging platforms in the Italian marketplace, with a very broad and articulate offering capable of appealing to all types of audiences.

For a detailed description of the television programming and networks and the radio stations and genres, see the chapters below concerning television and radio programming in detail.

Digital Terrestrial Television

Digital terrestrial is the digital platform of reference for the public service broadcaster. Rai has pursued a multichannel development of the offering and broadcasting infrastructures, which has enabled the provision of decisive support of the consolidation of the platform in line with the progress of the plan to gradually switch over the television system to the digital standard.

Rai sees satellite television as a complementary broadcasting platform with respect to digital terrestrial, which will make it possible to reach areas which are not served, even just partially, by this broadcasting technology. In this sense, the strategic choice made by Rai, together with Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media, was to create the first Italian free satellite platform (Tivù Sat), launched in July 2009, which offers viewers the chance to access free digital terrestrial channels via satellite.

As regards the television offering, Rai has a publishing plan which envisages a bouquet of fourteen free channels, one of which in HD. All this configures the broadest free offering available in Italy and among the main European countries.

At the end of 2011, Rai’s offering on DTT available at national level consisted of nine free channels:
• three general-interest channels – Rai 1, Rai 2 and Rai 3;
• six specialised channels - Rai 4, Rai News, Rai Storia, Rai Sport 1, Rai Sport 2 and Rai Gulp.

In the ‘all digital’ areas, thanks to the greater broadcasting capacity available after the switch-off, these are joined by six more free channels which, at the end of the digitalisation process, will be available nationwide:
• five specialised channels – Rai 5, Rai Movie, Rai Premium, Rai YoYo and Rai Scuola;
• a High Definition channel – Rai HD.

In addition and in support of the linear television offering, Rai proposes interactive applications and will soon be launching video services via the Internet for use through decoders and televisions certified with a DGTVI gold sticker.

At the end of 2011 Rai’s international offering was also broadcast through the satellite platform and consisted of two networks:
• Rai Italia;
• Euronews (pan-European news and information channel created by a consortium of which Rai is one of the founder partners).
The broadcasts of the international channels Yes Italia and Rai Med ended at the end of the year.

Internet

Together with DTT, the web represents a central platform in Rai’s programming and industrial strategy, both in the light of its growing popularity with Italian families and due to its ability to determine in-depth innovation in the offering, consumption and business models.

2011 was characterised by Rai’s increasingly consistent presence on the multimedia platform with an on-line offering that boasts over 1,500 websites and witnessed the enhancement of the number of television channels available on Replay Tv and of the applications dedicated to the world of tablets and smartphones.

Rai.it is the portal that aggregates and increases the accessibility to the vast web offering of the public service broadcaster. It particularly promotes and offers access to all the programming broadcast and to the relative contents of all the general-interest and specialised tv networks available on the web, all the radio channels and all the contents of all the news.

Rai.it also proposes a series of important and interesting services for users, such as the programming guide to all the Rai radio and TV channels and the community that enables interaction with Rai’s most popular programmes and celebrities, and with other fans who share this passion.

A strong and constant oversight of Rai’s contents (multimedia and otherwise) on the main social networks (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube) was also activated, with the creation of official pages dedicated to the television and radio channels and to some of the most important programmes and tv fiction series.

Rai.tv is the environment through which it is possible to access the whole Rai audio-video offering available on the Internet, via an advanced graphic interface.

Rai.tv’s offering was further expanded and renewed in terms of video quality and the variety of contents and services offered to users in 2011, confirming it as one of the leaders in relation to quantity and quality at Italian and international level.
Rai’s website offers:
• the live streaming of 16 TV channels (Yes Italia stopped broadcasting on 31 December) and 11 radio channels;
• in on-demand mode: 13 themebased areas, almost all the tv offering of the general-interest channels and news programmes, as well as extensive content from the Rai Teche and extra productions created exclusively for the web.

The offering of channels available in Replay TV mode was expanded, with the possibility of access, in video streaming on demand mode, not only the programming of Rai 1, Rai 2 and Rai 3, but also that of Rai Five broadcast over the previous seven days.

Rai.tv’s oversight on the main social networks was consolidated, along with the integration with Facebook for the management of comments during live broadcasts of certain programmes and specialised channels.

In particular, over 1,000 programmes are available on-demand with about 120 programmes available in podcast mode. Furthermore, over 600 new videos are published on a monthly basis.

The collaboration with You Tube continued, with a selection of Rai content also available from the themebased channels (Celebrity, Junior, Comici, Cultura ecc.).
With about 5,000 contents on line and 500 new videos every month, Rai.tv on You Tube is one of the most successful channels in Italy.

Smartphone and tablet

Rai’s presence on mobile devices boasts 16 applications, which have generated about 916 thousand downloads since the launch date. These applications include RadioRai, Tg1, Tg3, Rai Sport, Rai News, La prova del cuoco, Televideo, Un medico in famiglia, Rai 5, Rai Storia, Italia 150 and Community.

Rai on Connected TV

In line with the evolution outlined by the analysis of the new media market, an experimental project has been launched for the presidia of the offering on television screens that can be connected to the Internet (Connected TV) with entry into a first partnership with Sony for the offering of on-demand content on Sony Bravia tv.

Digital Internet protocol television (Iptv)

Also in this segment, which is still marginally used by Italian families, Rai has always been highly active, with the development of a dedicated offering which aims to exploit the potential of this platform. Rai was present for the whole of 2011 on the platform managed by Fastweb, with a Video On Demand service called Rai On, offering several theme-based channels and fed with Rai’s current and past programming.

This collaboration was interrupted at the end of the year due to the termination of this offer by Fastweb which repositioned from a closed model, in which the broadband operator also played a role in the preparation of the editorial offering, to a more open model in which its functions merely as a distributive platform.