Italy EurOMo Country Report 2025

The Italian media system is dominated by a few large publishing groups controlling most of the country’s media outlets. Fininvest S.p.A. (Mediaset), Cairo Communication S.p.A. (RCS), Gedi Gruppo Editoriale S.p.A, and Tosinvest S.p.A together account for over 50% of the outlets included in this study. These actors – along with Rai Group S.p.A and Sky Group Limited, both concentrating its business solely on the television sector, own fewer outlets – represent about 40% of the total value of the SIC (Integrated Communications System) (AgCom, 2024), the index used by the national regulator AgCom to measure the sector’s overall market share. This indicates a media market concentrated in the hands of a few players who, while formally complying with antitrust limits, effectively exert dominant control over national information flows. The Italian media ownership system is notably complex. A consolidated pattern emerging from financial and ownership data is the so-called “Chinese box” structure, where a holding controls several subsidiaries — and ultimately media outlets — through a chain of sub-holdings. This layered system allows ultimate owners to retain control through their position atop the ownership pyramid, often without holding an absolute majority of shares, making it difficult to identify the actual beneficial owner behind each outlet.