Boom, boom

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 17

Boom, boom

Over the last 18 months a thousand private local radio stations have mushroomed in Italy. They have broken the monopoly of R.A.1., the state-run broadcasting body, and created a delicate political problem for Italy’s Christian Democratic Government. In 1975, the Italian police closed down a pirate station, Radio BRA. Its owner, Mr Dario Fo, went to court and won, thanks to a clause in Italy’s constitution which gives every citizen the right to free local information.

This opened the floodgates to a surge of commercial stations throughout the country, mostly one-room operations. At the last count Rome alone was served by 87 — three of them operating from shanty huts on balconies in the Hilton hotel.

Most of them provide round-the-clock pop music, which has forced R.A.I. to beef up its own music output. More worrying for the government are a handful of “political” stations, many of them run by Leftwing groups who give air-

time, for example, to feminists, homosexuals, and minority political parties. One of these, Radio Alice in Bologna, played an important role in coordinating local student riots by telephone. Its last 10 minutes on the air were a live broadcast of the police breaking in to close it down.

The Italian public seems to welcome independent news coverage mixed with pop, but most people accept that the free-for-all has got out of hand. The communications minister, Mr Vittorio Colombo, has submitted a draft bill to reform R.A.I. and restrict private radio stations to a quarter of the available frequencies with a maximum range of 20 km.

If passed, this would kill most of the stations now on the air. Some people fear it would create a new type of monopoly, favouring those with strong business backing. Meanwhile Radios “Luna,” “Rolls,” “Explosions," “Citta Future” and the rest boom noisily forth.