Rai Group covers all the consolidated and emerging platforms in the marketplace, with a very broad and articulate offering capable of appealing to all types of audiences. During 2012, within Rai’s Board of Directors, two consulting committees were set up on the editorial lines and on the quality of the offering.

Digital terrestrial and satellite television

Digital terrestrial is the digital platform of reference for Rai, which has pursued a multichannel development of the offering and broadcasting infrastructures in recent years, enabling the provision of decisive support to the consolidation of the digital terrestrial platform during the switchover of the television system to the digital standard.

Rai sees satellite television as a complementary broadcasting platform with respect to digital terrestrial, which makes 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 Tivù Sat, launched in July 2009, the free satellite platform which offers viewers the chance to access free digital terrestrial channels via satellite.

As regards the television offering, Rai envisages a bouquet of fifteen free channels, one of which in HD, broadcast on digital terrestrial and through Tivù Sat. All this configures the broadest free offering available in Italy and among the main European countries.

With the completion of the switchover to digital terrestrial, Rai’s television offering is standardised nationwide and – at the end of 2012 – consisted of:
• three general-interest channels – Rai 1, Rai 2 and Rai 3;
• eleven specialised channels - Rai 4, Rai 5, Rai Movie, Rai Premium, Rai News, Rai Storia, Rai Sport 1, Rai Sport 2, Rai Gulp, Rai Yoyo and Rai Scuola;
• one high definition channel – Rai HD.

In addition and in support of the linear television offering, Rai proposes interactive applications and video services on demand via the Internet for use through specific decoders and connected TV.

International television offering

Rai also operates on the international television market with an offer consisting of two channels:
•Rai Italia, a channel aimed at Italian living abroad, outside of Europe;
•Euronews, pan-European multilingual news and information channel created by a consortium of which Rai is one of the founder partners.

Radio

The lines of action concerning the definition and production, and the development of the offer pursue a style of Radio present on all analogue and digital platforms, implementing the guidelines for the relaunch of Radio (2009), borrowing the example of the major European public services, and take into account the dynamics of the competitive market. It should be said that a series of structural interventions have improved RadioRai’s functional layout, integrating the flows, responsibilities and results with the company’s disciplines.

In 2012 the Radio completed the alignment to the processes of planning, validation and control of the offering of the TV area, making a decisive step towards the full integration of Radio into the strategies of the various media in the digital age. This will allow the harmonisation of programming for the different periods of time, guaranteeing the modularity of the offer and control of costs. The radio offering produced entirely inhouse consists of:
•Radio1 and the Giornale Radio, Radio2 and Radio3;
•the public utility channels - Isoradio, Cciss Viaggiare Informati, Filodiffusione IV and V canale;
•the parliamentary information channel Gr Parlamento;
•3 WebRadio.

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 indepth innovation in the offering, consumption and business models.

Rai’s offering consists essentially of two components:
• Rai.it is the portal that aggregates and increases the accessibility to the vast web offering of the Group. In particular Rai.it 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 informative and multimedia contents of all the news programmes. 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;
• 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 comprises different services: the live streaming of 15 TV channels and 10 radio channels; replay tv, which envisages access on demand to the offering covered by rights of Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3 and Rai 5 broadcast in the last 7 days. The on demand system, which can be used to access almost all the TV offering of the general-interest and news channels, as well as extensive content available exclusively on the web, taken from the Teche and Rai production archives. Rai.tv is also present with a series of official channels on the YouTube platform.

Some of Rai’s web services (e.g.: Rai.tv, Radio Rai, Televideo, Rai News, Tg1, Tg3, Rai Sport) are also accessible in the form of applications for the main smartphone and tablet platforms.

Rai’s video on demand offering is also available on Sony Bravia connectable televisions with five theme-based channels (current affairs, entertainment, tv fiction series, children’s tv and music), as well as on DTT interactive televisions and decoders (certified with the Gold stamp) with the Rai Replay and TGR services.

At the end of 2012 Rai signed a commercial agreement with Telecom Italia to supply three theme-based channels (tv fiction series, children’s tv and culture) destined to the basic service of the Cubovision platform and distribution of the Rai Replay service.

Rai’s official presence on the leading social networks (Facebook and Twitter) was strengthened in 2012 with the activation of official profiles/accounts of televising and radio channels and programmes.

Lastly, at the end of 2012, Rai social TV was launched. Accessible with a Rai, Twitter or Facebook account Rai social tv can be used to interact with other users and with the programme departments in real time and to make use of non-linear additional contents.