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Retemia becomes Hot Italia

By Staff Writer | January 17, 2001

      Italian national broadcaster Retemia is set to change its name to Hot Italia and be majority owned by a German company.

      Retemia was founded at the beginning of the 1980s by Giorgio Mendella and is now controlled by a consortium which includes Internova, the Profit Group and Videopiu. The Tuscany-based broadcaster will soon be entirely owned by Hot Italia which, for its part, is owned by the German group Hot Europe.

      The change in ownership could bring Italy’s Communications Ministry to re-evaluate the government’s position regarding the denial of Retemia’s broadcasting licence by decree last May. At the time, two US-based companies held 37 per cent of Hot Italia’s capital. This quota was judged by the Ministry as too high for a non-European partner in a TV network which has nationwide coverage. Over the last few months, Hot Europe has taken over the two quotas in question, thus removing the obstacles for the licence.

      By forming part of Hot, Retemia would continue to air its home shopping programmes, but improve them both in quantity and quality since the German group is the European leader in the sector.

      Retemia’s signal is currently received in 96 out of 100 Italian provinces for an overall coverage of 80 per cent of the population and can count on a network of 283 repeaters. From March, the channel will also be available free-to-air via a Eutelsat satellite. Retemia’s operative centre is located in Lucca, but the studios are based in Milan, Genoa and Rome. The channel’s average daily audience is estimated at around 2 million viewers.