The Italian TV station Mediaset Italia, part of Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset group recently launched in Romania, where Chello Networks owns the distribution rights. Mediaset Italia is a pay TV channel, which has already been included in the scheduled of several cable operators in Romania, but would like to expand distribution to the larger platforms. “We believe it would be a good business for us, as well as for the large cable and DTH operators in Romania,” said Paola de Santiago Haas, Project Manager with Mediaset Distribution. Mediaset Italia is currently available via cable distributors NextGen (Romtelecom), Canal S, Ines Group and TV Sat 2002.

Mediaset Italia was launched three years to serve the Italian audience abroad, and broadcasts the most important programs from Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4, the group's flagship channels in Italy.

Mediaset's TV channels were previously available to the Romanian public in the early 90s, but after the copyright law was enforced in Romania in 1996, they were removed for the cable companies' schedules. Mediaset was founded in the 70s and is the largest private media company in Italy, being controlled by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It runs TV stations which are free to carry on cable networks, as well as pay TV stations.

In Romania, the rights to re-distribute their content is owned by Chello Central Europe, which has other TV channels in its portfolio: Minimax, Megamax, Sport1, SportM, TV Paprika, Film Café, Fine Living, CBS Reality, JimJam, Extreme Sports Channel, Outdoor Channel, Food Network şi MGM Channel.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Mediaset)