Rumors have
circulated that RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, would not confirm a 10th
season for "Incantesimo", or
"Enchantment".
On Thursday,
Claudio Petruccioli, RAIs president, said no
decision had been made on the shows future, except to finish production of
the current season.
Local lawmakers
immediately protested the potential loss of employment, not to mention a
made-in-Italy product.
I cant
understand why RAI would want to eliminate an entirely Italian product,- Francesco Giro, a lawmaker with
the conservative Forza Italia party, told the Ansa news agency.
Members of his
party in
The cancellation
would have serious repercussions in terms of employment," fretted Enrico Gasbarra, the centrist governor of the
When it was
broadcast in prime time, "Incantesimo",
about the convoluted lives and loves of a group of doctors, was one of
RAIs most popular series, and it was distributed in 25 countries.
But in January
"Incantesimo" was moved from prime time to daytime, and from a weekly to a half-hour daily format. RAI
made the move to challenge its main competitor, Mediaset -
which is owned by the family of former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi.
Incantesimo" went up against some of Mediasets most popular soaps, and still managed to
snatch a 16 percent share compared with Mediasets
daytime soap "Vivere" /"Living" which has a 20 percent share.
But RAIs
accountants, under pressure to cut costs and investments, have turned their
shears to daytime programming. The show was supposed to start shooting in
September at a cost of 100,000 euros, or $138,200, an episode.
Agostino Sacca, head of RAI Fiction, RAIs production and
distribution arm, defended the show and said that RAIs cost-cutting
measures would "not be resolved cutting products, especially successful
ones that reached their strategic objectives."
Antonio Alessi of the Deangelis Group,
which produces "Incantesimo," said,
"We need answers because television production is an industrial process
and needs continuity." The show directly employs about 250 people and more
than twice that including outside service industries, like caterers.
In the end,
its a question of bureaucracy," he said. "Italians just
dont understand how the television business works."
Some commentators
think RAI is not wrong to be looking at the bottom line.
In his Thursday
column in Corriere Della Sera, Aldo Grasso called
"Incantesimo" a product of "mediocre
artistic value," and chided politicians for wanting to protect workers in
a sector that provided no job security.
We want a
restless soul and a fixed income", Mr. Grasso wrote.