Mediaset S.p.A.

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Type	Società per azioni
Traded as	BIT: MS
Industry	Mass media
Founded	1978 (as TeleMilano)
Headquarters	Milan, Italy
Key people	Giuliano Adreani (CEO), Fedele Confalonieri (Chairman), Pier Silvio Berlusconi (Vice-Chairman)
Products	Free-to-air and subscription television broadcasting, radio, television production
Revenue	€4.292 billion (2010)[1]
Operating income	€815.5 million (2010)[1]
Profit	€352.2 million (2010)[1]
Employees	6,285 (2010)[1]
Subsidiaries	Mediaset España (41.218%), Endemol (as part of consortium)
Website	www.mediaset.it

Mediaset S.p.A., known as Gruppo Mediaset in Italian, is an Italian-based mass media company which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country. Founded in the 1970s by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and still controlled today with a 38.6% stake by his family holding company Fininvest, the group competes primarily against the public broadcaster and market leader RAI, La7, and News Corporation's Sky Italia.

Mediaset's headquarters are in Milan, Lombardy. Many of its studios are located in the Milano 2 area of Segrate, a municipality bordering Milan, where broadcasts of local station TeleMilano (now airing nationally as Mediaset's Canale 5) began in 1978. After merging with various local broadcaster to form the Canale 5 syndication, much production was moved to Cologno Monzese, where the infrastructure of the former Telealtomilanese was present. The company currently has three main television production centres, in Segrate, Cologno Monzese and Rome.^[2]

Due to their proximity to (or encirclement by) Italy, Croatia, Switzerland, Malta, San Marino, the Vatican City and Slovenia also receive Mediaset broadcasts.

In addition to its domestic television interests, Mediaset also operates a series of news, entertainment and sport websites; holds 50.1% of the Spanish broadcasting firm Mediaset España Comunicación; and heads a consortium which owns the television production house Endemol.

Holdings[link]

Holdings in Spain are through Mediaset's 50.1% stake in Mediaset España Comunicación.

National channels[link]

Mediaset controls five free-to-air generalist terrestrial channels (three in Italy and two in Spain):

• Canale 5 (Italy)
• Italia 1 (Italy)
• Rete 4 (Italy)
• Telecinco (Spain)
• Cuatro (Spain)

and

• Nessma TV (Maghreb) 25%
• China Sport Network (China) 49%
• Happy TV (Serbia) ??% (proposed)

Digital terrestrial television channels[link]

Satellite platforms[link]

• Canal + (Spain) (Mediaset España holds 22%)

Endemol[link]

A consortium headed by Mediaset, and also consisting of Goldman Sachs and John de Mol's Cyrte Group, acquired Dutch television production company Endemol in 2007.^[3]

Europa 7 lawsuit[link]

In January 2008, the European Court of Justice ruled that the TV frequencies used by Mediaset to broadcast Rete 4 were shared out unfairly. They should have been given to Europa 7, a competitor channel, the judges maintain, and Rete 4 should be broadcast via satellite instead. Although the Italian Council of State, the highest court on administrative matters, has confirmed that the Italian government should abide by this European ruling, Rete 4 continues its operation on analog frequencies and on DVB-T.^[4]

Google lawsuit[link]

In 30 July 2008, Mediaset filed a lawsuit against Google for €500 million (US$779 million dollars) with the charges of copyright infringement. The company stated that 325 hours worth of material was uploaded to YouTube and the result was the loss of 315,672 viewing days and ad revenue.^[5][6]

SKY Italia lawsuit[link]

On September 16, 2009, SKY Italia (fully owned by News Corporation) filed a lawsuit to the Court of Milan, Italy, against Reti Televisive Italiane and Publitalia '80 (both owned by Mediaset) for a violation of Article 82 of European Treaty that regulates free economic competition between companies, in particular for refusing to allow SKY Italia to purchase advertising on the three main Mediaset television channels (Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4),^[7] exercising Article 700 of the Italian Civil Procedural Code who permit to require an urgent action.^[8] Mediaset has rejected the charge of antitrust violations, stating that in 2009 it had broadcast SKY Italia commercials 3107 times on its channels, whereas SKY Italia has always refused to broadcast Mediaset commercials.^[9]

References[link]

See also[link]

• TGCOM, an Italian news website owned by Mediaset

External links[link]

• Official website

Companies portal

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