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Italy parliament approves controversial media law ( 2003-12-03 14:14) (Agencies) The Italian parliament passed a controversial media bill Tuesday that critics say favors Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's business empire.
After a long battle, the law was approved by Berlusconi's center-right allies with a 27-vote majority in the face of fierce opposition from center-left politicians as well as some newspaper editors and state broadcaster RAI.
Government supporters say the law breathes fresh life into the rigid media market, allowing the largely protected Italian industry to deal with foreign competition and setting a time frame for the rollout of digital television.
Opponents say it favors private broadcaster Mediaset, top publisher Mondadori and Italy's biggest advertising sales firm -- all controlled by the Berlusconi family holding company Fininvest.
"From today we are all a little less free ... the law worsens all the ills of our television system: little competition, falling quality and progressive restriction of pluralism," said Paolo Gentiloni of the center-left opposition Margherita party.
Berlusconi, through his political office and his business interests, has direct and indirect influence over an estimated 95 percent of Italian TV.
The new media law, named after Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri, will allow the Berlusconi family holding company to buy into radio and newspapers starting in 2009.
"We are satisfied. But it's only a chapter in a never-ending story," Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri told reporters in Monte Carlo. "Even tomorrow, the protests to the Italian president will begin."
Earlier, he said the law would give Mediaset and publisher Mondadori access to extra revenues of 750 million euros ($896 million).
Nationwide protests are scheduled for Wednesday night.
'VERY EMOTIONAL'
"I must confess to being very emotional," said Marina Berlusconi, the premier's daughter and deputy chairwoman of Fininvest, after the bill passed.
"It will be an important thing for the whole system in Italy," she told an annual conference in Monte Carlo as her brother Pier Silvio looked on and some in the audience wept.
Italy's move to loosen media ownership laws follows a trend seen in Britain and most recently the United States and Spain.
U.S. lawmakers gave in to White House pressure last week and agreed to allow increased control of the airwaves by television networks, while Spain is considering allowing one firm to hold stakes in more than one TV network.
"From a media ownership point of view, what Italy is trying to have is a system that is not greatly different from Britain's. But then there's the Berlusconi factor," said one London-based media analyst, who declined to be identified.
"Having a prime minister whose family has a chunk of a broadcaster that has 65 percent of the advertising market and 43 percent audience share makes the two systems incomparable," the analyst added.
The government vowed to change media laws when it took office in 2001, but only unveiled the package in September 2002 after lengthy consultations. The Gasparri law expands the advertising market by allowing more space for product promotions within shows -- increasing commercial time beyond the current 20 minutes every hour. The law also puts RAI through a privatization that critics -- including its president, Lucia Annunziata, and other media executives -- have called "fake," because it allows shareholders to take just a 1 percent stake in the state broadcaster. Annunziata, who only took over the RAI helm in March, has said she would resign if the bill was passed.
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