Without wanting to start with Adam and Eve, let's see if and how it is feasible the proposal made by Pd to abolish the Rai fee but yesterday remodeled by Matteo Renzi (abolish or reduce? We'll see) in "Otto e mezzo". It is certainly an ancient "high tax" which is certainly not appreciated by the majority of Italians. Its formulation dates back to 1938, when a fundamental principle was established which is still in force today and which we quote directly from the website of the Revenue Agency: "The TV fee is payable by anyone who has a television set, it is paid only once a year and only once per family on the condition that the family members reside in the same house."
Therefore, the will of the legislator then and today focuses on simple and clear joint elements: whoever owns a television pays. This formulation was, in fact, resumed no later than a couple of years ago when the Renzi government itself proposed and included in the law the payment of the fee through the electricity bill, thus reducing the abnormal evasion.
The 2016 Stability Law therefore introduces an epochal step in the history of the license fee and allows for the recovery of hundreds of millions previously lost. It should be noted that the amount of the fee, net of taxes and withholdings at 4%, is collected entirely from the state coffers (and Minister Carlo Calenda correctly not only defined it as a "wrong idea, but also claimed it from his dicastery the ownership of the matter) which, in turn, transfers the most considerable part to the cash desks of Viale Mazzini and a portion is transferred to the local broadcaster.
It is easy to understand how this amount, around 1600 million compared to around 700 in advertising (p. 114 Rai 2016 financial statements) is fundamental for the life of the Company and cannot easily be replaced with another source of public funding unless having to provide with other instruments of general taxation or, even, to imagine other forms of general funding for Rai that no one, so far, has ever had the courage to propose.
Further fundamental elements for understanding the objective difficulty of tackling such a complex issue can be found in the two legislative pillars which arrange the operational perimeter of the public radio and television service company and its sources of livelihood. The first is the much-discussed and well-known Gasparri Law, 112 of 2004, where the well-known SIC (Integrated Communications System) was introduced which, for quoting accuracy, we take it from the second legislative pillar, the TUSMAR (Consolidated Text of Audiovisual Media Services and Radio) where it reads: "The economic sector which includes the following activities: daily and periodical press; yearbook and electronic publishing, including via the Internet; radio and television; cinema; outdoor advertising; product and service communication initiatives; sponsorships".
The combined provisions of the two legal texts, and subsequent updates, already by themselves show how the canon element is only, so to speak, a small part of what is regulated in the entire sector of communication, not just audiovisual. Tackling so much complexity is certainly possible and, in some ways, perhaps even appropriate and necessary, but it certainly requires times and political conditions that are still completely difficult to predict.
Having finalized the legislative clarity that makes the proposal to abolish the license fee in the short term complicated, we can try to resume arguments that have been proposed for some time on the future of Viale Mazzini. The first of all, eternally unresolved, is the nature, the function, the logic of the public broadcasting service. There are not a few who wonder about the current situation, the need and urgency of protecting a service that in many respects is still universal and generalist (basically to inform, educate and entertain) in other respects usable by citizens in other nodes and with other means, different from the television.
The real issue is always the same: to define today for tomorrow what the Public Radio and Television Service should be and how it should be financed, through the state coffers or in any other form. In most European countries, articulated forms of coexistence between resources from license fees and advertising coexist well, only Great Britain resists with the single taxation model, but they have the BBC. All very simple.
Returning to current events, a few days have passed since the approval of the recent Finance Law and it is worth mentioning two important aspects for the future of Viale Mazzini. The first concerns the former art. 89 (we wrote about it in a previous article) and the second concerns, precisely, the fee. For the first point, not enough has been written yet about how much it can influence the punctual application of the Community provisions on the reallocation of frequencies around 700 Mhz, for a round game which, for the state coffers, is worth at least 2,5 billion euros while for Rai it could have a significant impact on its business model.
The second aspect concerns a sort of "fake news" right on the license fee. At first, when proposing the amendments, a maneuver of great interest for Viale Mazzini was suggested: determining the value of the rent for the next five years. An epochal turning point for the asphyxiated Rai coffers. Amendment vanished while another certainly advantageous has passed: the exclusion from the ISTAT basket.
The game is completely open, regardless of the electoral campaign and who will be the winner on March 4th.
