ABSTRACT
This chapter will concentrate on broadcasting policies to the detriment of those affecting the press industry. The newspaper industry in Italy has suffered various setbacks in the contemporary period. Among these has been the lack of government investment in the industry compared to that of television, despite each of the major parties controlling their own newspaper title in the postwar period. Historically, the regional character of the press industry means that Italy has been slow to develop national titles, hindering the development of a mass readership,
and allowing broadcasting to reap national advertising revenues. Italy, therefore, has a situation, unparalleled in many other western European countries, where broadcasting takes a far larger share of advertising revenue than newspapers (Balassone & Guglielmi, 1993, p. 12; Andreano & Iapadre, 2005).
