Italy keeps Murdoch waiting

Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 02-12-2009

Italy's communications authorities are not doing News Corp or Rupert Murdoch any favours.

News Corp has complained that the Ministry of Communications was itself responsible for launch delays of a new News Corp-backed channel, Cielo (which means ‘sky' in Italian). The channel should have launched Dec 1. A Cielo statement on Monday said the channel would not begin as scheduled because authorisation from the ministry had not arrived.

The ministry said a statement broadcast on Sky Italia (the News Corp-owned pay-TV broadcaster) had made "a series of formal and substantial errors" about an administrative issue that the ministry had overseen correctly. Terrestrial broadcasting for the group's Cielo channel had to wait for a ministry go-ahead and a 60-day approval period had yet to expire, Deputy Minister Paolo Romani added.

© Rapid TV News 2009

Sky Italia-Cielo-News Corp-RAI-Mediaset

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