Rai, Fuortes: “Debt of 300 million euros in three years”

“Rai in three years has worsened its financial situation by about 300 million euros. To cover a similar figure, a company that has no profits, because in fact it cannot have any and is aiming to break even, I don’t know how long it will take . The losses of a company such as Rai are not written off. There is no law in the law. If someone makes a law to that effect, it may also be a strategy to finance the product and quality at a loss, but currently losses are not covered by the state and all remain in the company. In three or four years, if this dynamic continued, the books were brought to court. And I believe that neither I, nor the president, nor the Board of Directors, which unanimously voted in favor of these terrible cuts, we want to bring Rai’s books to court “. The CEO of Viale Mazzini Carlo Fuortes said so during the reply to the questions put to him by the RAI Commissioners. “We are all in full agreement, he stressed – that quality is an absolute priority in a cultural company and I have always tried to prove this with facts in all the companies I have managed, but you need to have the resources. Rai license fee is € 90, which in France is € 135, in England it is € 180, Germany is € 240. There is therefore a problem of resources, and compared to our sisters in the Public Service we are certainly underfunded. This is undoubted. We have a part, which perhaps others do not have, of advertising revenues which, however, has a ceiling that among other things we discuss whether to reduce. Here, therefore, we are not talking about enhancing Rai, but how to be able to continue to live. It is therefore extremely important how to bring Rai into balance. Three hundred million worsening of the financial situation is a very difficult cost to bear “.” In all the cultural institutions I have managed – Fuortes reiterated, urged to speak of this by the commissioners in relation to the cuts – I first thought about the quality of the product and it is almost pleonastic to talk about this. The important thing, however, is to think about how to finance this product. And the only way in which the product cannot be financed is with the losses that in a cultural company such as Rai, essentially non-profit, directly become the reduction of assets and debt “.” I assure you that in the future, for the entire duration of my position, I will never submit, for the approval of the Board of Directors, a forecast budget at a loss. The President also referred to this in her report. This is a theme of responsibility that we feel particularly strongly in order to achieve a careful and rigorous management of the important resources that citizens entrust to us through the fee “, Fuortes pointed out.” In my opinion, virtuous economic management represents the indispensable precondition for to be able to adequately address the major changes that Rai will have to implement – the CEO pointed out – It is on the basis of this approach that, in the first operational meeting of the board of directors on 28 July, I wanted to present a revision of the Budget 2021 with a balanced result, compared to a deficit of 57 million euros in the initial budget. It was a measure that we wanted to take immediately, which makes the budgets of all company structures more efficient, without affecting the schedule already presented last June. I want to underline it as strongly as possible: these interventions will have no effect on the product (programs, quality of the offer, etc.) also because, thanks to more advertising resources, the cost cutting needs are really minimal: in average not exceeding 1% of budgets “.