Strike Impact: Mediaset

MILAN, January 24: Francesco Mozzetti, the head of
acquisitions and the sales department at RTI, is most concerned about running
out of returning hits like House and CSI on Canale 5 and Italia 1 as he develops schedules
for the latter half of this year.

The Mediaset channels run a fair amount of American drama in
day-time and prime-time slots. The CSI
franchise and Grey’s Anatomy
broadcast in prime time on Italia 1, the youth-skewing network that also
features a host of classic American dramas during the day. House, meanwhile, is airing on Canale 5 in prime time.

Mozzetti says there are “no major problems for the new
shows” from the L.A. Screenings last year. There are, however, “more problems
with the continuing seasons of the American series for prime time. We’ll run
out of episodes of [the fourth season of] House in June this year and CSIs
and Grey’s by the end of 2008.
We’re working on many possible solutions for the second half of 2008 and 2009.”

The likely solution, Mozzetti says, is local productions, a
move that “is a bit dangerous for U.S. series because sometimes replacements
unexpectedly work better and at that point it may be difficult to re-gain
certain time slots.”

He adds that conventional wisdom has it that Italians have a
lot of imagination, “so we’ll see,” he says, indicating that he and his team
will find a way to solve the problem.

Mozzetti is hopeful that an agreement will be reached soon,
and notes that if the L.A. Screenings go ahead as planned in May, “we’ll be
there for sure. We know that [the studios are] working very hard to respect the
May date. They’ve always surprised us; they may do it also this time.”

For full coverage of the writers strike click here.

—By Anna Carugati & Mansha Daswani