An “affaire” worthy of House of Cards, the Netflix (fantasy) political series. Yes, because the US giant of online on demand streaming is preparing to land in Italy, through Telecom, announcing a revolution which cannot leave the protagonists of the Italian television scene indifferent.
The Telecom-Netflix negotiation
But let's go in order. In fact, the ongoing negotiation between Telecom Italia and Netflix is news of a few days ago. This was announced by the CEO of the telecommunications company Marco Patuano, specifying that the project (hopefully, will have its culmination between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016) does not question the partnership already defined by Telecom with Sky, which foresees the landing on the market of the first large-scale streaming service in April.
The main problem, as far as Netflix is concerned, which can now count on over 57 million subscribers spread across 50 different countries, 50 titles in its catalog and a subscription cost of less than 10 euros a month, is that of the speed of our connections, or rather their slowness. A problem to which Telecom it is trying to remedy with the massive appropriations for the expansion of the diffusion of the optical fiber.
A bespoke TV
An announced revolution, as mentioned. The transition to a new model of offer and use of television content, and a possible cultural change of the viewer himself, no longer the passive protagonist of a schedule that (be it good or bad) simply comes immediately, but the active protagonist who determines, with his choices, his own programming.
The on demand, in a nutshell. The one with which Telecom Italia intends to dominate the online Pay TV market and retire television as we have always known it.
Rai Way and Mediaset
But then where is the intrigue? The intrigue lies in the link between this story, the landing of Netflix which is getting closer and closer, and another story, with a much more Italian flavor, which is the one in which Mediaset, through its subsidiary Ei Towers, makes an offer takeover bid on Rai Way.
An offer that has unleashed an immense range of reactions, and which has opened up to an avalanche of inferences on several fronts (first of all the political one, but in the crosshairs, preventively, also the supervisory bodies have finished), but which poses the its roots in an existing need, namely that of creating a large single national operator in the field of infrastructures intended for hosting television and radio equipment, capable of playing a significant role also in the telecommunications sector.
A single operator, which in Ei Towers' plans should bring Italy back to the level of the large European countries, in which the infrastructures are managed at a national level by a single operator.
A single national champion strong enough to fight on equal terms in the jungle of global competition and therefore capable of facing even giants like Netflix.
