At a press conference last week, the managing director of Rai International, Piero Badaloni, announced that Italys international TV service, Rai International, is changing its name to Rai Italia, and is adopting Rais butterfly logo. From March util 21 June there will be a new schedule, with a lot of new programmes, some produced specially for an overseas audience. After 21 June, the channel will stop using GMT (UTC) as its time standard. From the beginning of March, there will be a new newshour at 06, 12, 18 & 24 hrs UTC, specially produced for Rai Italia in collaboration with the various domestic news programmes.
Currently, Rai International broadcasts 3 different programming schedules: Rai International 1 reaches North America and Latin America, Rai International 2 goes to Australia, Rai International 3 to Asia and Africa. Making the new Rai Italia available in Western Europe is under consideration, but not plans have so far been formulated. Currently, RAIs three domestic TV networks are available across the region on satellite. At the press conference, nothing was said about the international radio services.
