Italian budget includes digital TV rebates

November 21, 2006 ROME --- Italy's 2007 budget will include a program that will give Italians who buy new high-definition digital television sets rebates worth up to €200 ($257) in a bid to promote the spread of digital broadcast technology in Italy. According to the research group Censis, some 73% of Italians still use old terrestrial television, compared with just 50% in Germany, 41% in France, and 31% in the U.K. The average television in Italy is more than six years old, one of the oldest averages in Western Europe, Censis said. Last month, the Italian government passed a law requiring state broadcaster RAI and private broadcaster Mediaset -- which each own three national networks -- to switch one network each to solely digital technologies by 2009.

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