The association: “Government order on votes not respected, they refuse to show the data. Never happened in the history of TV, we ask for an urgent meeting with Milly Carlucci”
“Rai rebels against the Meloni government and, in contravention of the provisions imposed by the Commission for access to the Presidency of the Council, refuses once again to show Codacons the data on the votes of ‘Dancing with the Stars‘”. The matter was reported today by Codacons and by the Users’ Association of Radio and Television Services which, as it will be recalled, in recent days had won the first round of a battle on the transparency of public votes, with the Government having accepted the request of the two associations ordering Rai to show the acts relating to the votes of the public collected during the last edition of the programme.
According to what Adnkronos learns, with a note issued last April 12 signed by the lawyer Francesco Spadafora of the Rai legal office, the company has now responded to the new request presented by Codacons and the Association of Radio and Television Services Users following the victory obtained before the Commission for access of the Presidency of the Council, confirming “the non-acceptance of the request for access to the documents”.
In the communication sent by Rai to Codacons, previewed by Adnkronos, the company does not in fact recognize an automatic direct interest of the consumers’ association in the request for access to the documents. Specifically, it reads: “Following a new, further and independent assessment of the request and the legal considerations carried out, the non-acceptance of the request for access to the documents is confirmed […] Your statutory purposes which you invoke on several occasions to justify the access request presented, do not allow the direct, personal and current interest, which must characterize the access request, to be automatically deemed to exist […] Controlling compliance with the transparency and regularity of voting operations in the context of a television program broadcast by Rai is a power attributed by law certainly not to consumer associations but to the competent independent authorities. In any case, it should be noted that the “Dancing with the Stars” program is a television show, not an administrative activity aimed at immediately and directly achieving purposes of public interest”.
Rai “decides to rebel and disobey the government order by denying viewers any transparency regarding the programme’s votes”, thunders the Codacons. “We are facing a case that has no precedents in the history of Italian television – comments the president Carlo Rienzi – On the one hand, Rai disobeys the Government, on the other, by denying to make public the data on televoting, it fuels the suspicions and doubts of the citizens about possible irregularities or anomalies during ‘Dancing with the Stars’, going so far as to state that, since it is a simple television programme, the citizens who finance the company through the license fee have no interest or right to transparency”.
The reaction of the Codacons, therefore announces Rienzi, will be tough. “For this reason we are forced to report Rai and those responsible for ‘Dancing with the Stars’ to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rome, asking to proceed with the possible crime of ‘Non-compliance with the Authority’s provisions’ regulated by art. 650 of the penal code and which provides for the arrest of up to 3 months and a fine – continues Rienzi – At the same time we ask for an urgent meeting with the presenter Milly Carlucci, certainly more attentive to viewers than the Rai officials are, so that she can compare herself with the Codacons and allow us to view the requested documents “.
Source-www.adnkronos.com