The Commercial Division markets all the intellectual property rights of the Rai and third parties in Italy and abroad with the aim of finding economic resources in addition to those from the traditional licence fee and advertising, working on a variety of markets, in different business areas and on numerous projects.
The Division also defines the Group’s commercial strategies, identifying and consolidating new revenue opportunities at Italian and international level, as well as developing and managing conventions with central and local public administration, institutions, nonprofit organisations, consortia and foundations, and purchasing, marketing and distributing broadcasting and phonographic rights to contemporary, light and classical music and prose, and the sporting rights of Rai and third parties and the library of the Clubs in Italy and abroad.

Despite on-going difficulties on the national and international markets, the Commercial Division has strengthened the presence of Rai-branded products on both of the above-mentioned markets, achieving significant aims, developing important agreements with the football clubs on the sports libraries, as well as the musical publications and editorial activities of Eri.

Management and Development of Conventions with the Public Administration

The renewal of the Conventions with the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the defence of linguistic minorities and for programming destined to Italians abroad for 2013-2015 deserves a special mention.
The above-mentioned Conventions envisage the blockage of funding by the Administration for three years and establish the principle of reimbursement of the costs effectively sustained by Rai for the performance of the service.

Sale of Rights

The activities in this sphere determined higher results again in 2012. The good performances of the foreign area and Teche offset the crisis of the Italian market, which suffered a considerable decline with respect to previous years.

Musical Editions and Productions

The Musical Editions and Productions area develops and promotes the catalogue of musical publications aimed at its use in contemporary music, radio and television broadcasts and record production. It also purchases rights, produces and sells rights and distributes soundtracks, original music for radio and TV productions, contemporary and classical music and prose in Italy and abroad.

Sports sales

In the 2012 financial year, revenues for the sales of Sport recorded higher values than expected, via:
• the foreign co-distribution with Media Partner & Silva of the Italian Football Championship for the 2011/2012 season and for the 2012/2013 season;
• the sale of the cycling races of the RCS package (Giro d’Italia, Milano- Sanremo, Giro di Lombardia and Tirreno-Adriatico), of the home matches (friendlies and qualifiers) of the Italian National Football Team;
• the marketing abroad of the Inter, Juventus and Roma channels.

Sports Library
Within the scope of the development of initiatives to enhance the Rai Library, the development of agreements with the Football clubs continued.
Agreements were formalised during the year with: Fiorentina, Udinese, Genoa and Parma.

A commercial agreement was also defined with Juventus, envisaging the return, for just six years, to the Club of the rights over the sale and distribution of the Club’s Library in Italy and of the activity of the accomplishment, production and economic exploitation of the production of home matches which, by virtue of an agreement signed on 31 March 2006, were transferred by Juventus to Rai for 25 years.
With reference to this football club, Rai’s production of the Juventus Channel, distributed in the Sky platform, continues.



The publishing activity developed in line with the television and radio programming choices, giving a recognisable identity to the Rai library, maintaining the success of the Rai Eri brand in the world of culture and publishing.
Rai Eri continues to pursue the aim of offering the book market a “Rai to read”.
The offering of Rai Eri, with a catalogue of over 500 titles, has as its main aim that of responding to the public’s desire to know about and analyse the various areas of culture, from narration to essays.