MILAN, April 20 (Reuters) – Sky Italia, the satellite TV
unit of News Corp, is considering taking part in an
upcoming auction of television frequencies in Italy but has
still not decided, its chief executive was quoted as saying on
Friday.
“It’s still early to say,” Andrea Zappia told Italy’s Il
Sole 24 Ore. “We will decide … only when all the details are
known.”
The Rome government said this week a competitive auction of
frequencies will be called within 120 days, reversing plans by
the previous administration led by Silvio Berlusconi – the key
shareholder in Italy’s biggest commercial broadcaster Mediaset
– to give them away in a so-called beauty contest.
Zappia said he recognized the government of Mario Monti had
taken an important step forward by “choosing a neutral
approach”.
The previous process for assigning frequencies drew
criticism for favouring incumbent broadcasters Mediaset and
state-owned RAI.
Mediaset refused to say on Wednesday whether it would take
part in the auction, already billed by some market observers as
unattractive.
Asked about an interest in buying Swisscom’s
Italian broadband unit Fastweb, Zappia said “at this moment
there are no talks in that regard”.
