Multiplatform strategy on Italian Public Service Broadcasting: The role of Rainet and its relationship with traditional professional profiles

Abstract

Abstract New technologies have greatly affected, among other things, the television industry and its organizational structure, which has become increasingly competitive. To keep up, Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) has needed to cope with this changing scenario in order to maintain their market relevance and their ‘social’ legitimacy. In that respect a multiplatform strategy has been one of the main responses. RAI, for instance, has developed its own multiplatform portfolio, thanks both to the Rainet subsidiary and many other professionals. The former has managed to develop the technical platform for multiplatform delivery, whereas the latter showed a proactive attitude and experimented autonomously content production on the Internet. The interaction between traditional production processes and new ones for different platforms (especially for Internet) is investigated in the article; we consider in particular the impact that RAI’s multiplatform strategy has had on the working practices of two different editorial staffs. Our case studies are the political talk show Annozero/Yearzero (2006–2011) and the long-running soap opera Un posto al sole/A Place in the Sun (1996–).