RAI shuts down medium wave radio transmissions, minority affected
Trieste, 13 September - RAI, Italy's public national broadcaster, ceased on Sunday with the transmission of medium wave radio broadcasts, thus limiting access to Slovenian-language radio shows by the radio station Radio Trst A as well as to the L'Ora della Venezia Giulia show listened to by Italians in Slovenia and Croatia, Primorski Dnevnik reported on Tuesday.
Trieste, Italy
A RAI centre in Trieste.
Photo: Kaja Šoštarec/STA
File photo
From this evening onwards the programmes of the Slovenian minority's Radio Trst A will be accessible on the web platform Rai Play Sound, on short-wave FM, the website www.sedezfjk.rai.it and via the Eutelsat satellite.
Members of the Italian communities in Slovenia and Croatia will only be able to tune in to 90-minute-long show L'Ora della Venezia Giulia through satellite.
According to the Trieste-based newspaper Primorski Dnevnik, strong criticism of the step, which was being announced for a while, has come from Italian senators Debora Serracchiani and Tatjana Rojc, both members of the Democratic Party (PD).
Rojc, a member of the Slovenian minority in Italy, and Serracchiani, PD vice-president, warned RAI that securing access to information for the minority is stipulated by the convention between the broadcaster and the Italian government.
Last Friday this pending development was the topic of a meeting between Minister for Slovenians Abroad Matej Arčon and Italian Ambassador to Slovenia Carlo Campanile in Ljubljana.
Arčon said that while the abolishment of such broadcasts might be justified in the long term, adequate alternative solutions must be provided before that, solutions which would not affect access to Slovenian radio programmes.