Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol

The Rundfunkanstalt Südtirol (Italian: "Radiotelevisione Azienda Speciale", Ladin: "Radiotelevijion- Azienda per Südtirol") is a public broadcasting service for the majority German-speaking province of Bolzano-Bozen, Italy whose purpose is to relay programmes from public broadcasters of Austria, Germany, German and Romansh Switzerland. The agency has its headquarters in the province's capital city Bolzano.RAS has not to be confused with the regional trilingual programme of RAI, the Italian public broadcaster. RAS is completely funded by grants of the regional government.

History

When television broadcasts began, the German-speaking population of Bolzano-Bozen asked for the reception of the Austrian television programme but it wasn't possible because of the RAI radio and television monopoly. In 1966 the Italian government in Rome created the German-speaking programme of RAI from Bolzano but the German-speaking population just wanted to have the possibility to watch the programme from Austria and perceived the offer from Rome suspiciously.Fact|date=May 2008 The German-speaking programme of the government-owned RAI was seen as a way to control the process of autonomy in the region.cite The regional autonomy for Bolzano-Bozen in 1972 promised to create an agency whose purpose was to relay programmes from Austria and other German-speaking countries. The autonomous statute says that: "The Province shall have the power to issue laws on local artistic, cultural and educational events and activities, and also through the media of radio and television, but without the power to set up radio and television stations" [cite web | title=Autonomous Province of Bolzano-Bozen: "Autonomous Statute: Chapter 3, Art. 8, 4" | url=http://www.provinz.bz.it/lpa/autonomy/autonomy_statute_eng.pdf|accessdate= 2006-10-15] . The RAS owns nowadays all antenna towers in Bolzano-Bozen and is working for the digitalization of the broadcasting system. RAS cooperates with the local civil protection corps for the information of the population in cases of emergency.

Organization

RAS is a public company which is formed by a board elected for 2/3 by the Government of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-Bozen. According to the agency the RAS employs 26 workers. While the Italian public broadcaster RAI is funded by licence fees and advertising, RAS is completely funded by regional (of the Province) government funds. All the public broadcasters give the possibility to RAS to relay their programmes without any cost (provincial citizens don't have to pay extra license fees). Bolzano-Bozen is actually the only region in Italy to have two public broadcasting services operating (in Bolzano-Bozen there is an extra RAI regional programme and the 6 RAS TV programmes). The general director is Helmuth Hendrich.

Programmes

Television

RAS relays programmes from public broadcaster of Austria, Germany and Switzerland terrestrial both analogical and digital. Digital programmes cannot be seen analogical and vice versa. The network is under digitalization and in some areas the terrestrial reception of some programmes isn't more possible. The on-screen-design of RAS is a small writing down on the right of the screen.

RAS television programmes in Bolzano-Bozen:

* ORF 1 (Austria)
* ORF 2 (Austria)
* ZDF (Germany, "where digitalized only DVB-T")
* Das Erste (Germany, "where digitalized only DVB-T")
* 1 (Switzerland, "where digitalized -for example Bolzano- only DVB-T")
* 2 (Switzerland, "only DVB-T")

Radio

Radio is under digitalization too.

RAS radio programmes in Bolzano-Bozen:

* Ö1 (Austria)
* Ö2-Radio Tirol (Austria - Tyrol)
* Ö3 (Austria)
* FM 4 (Austria, "DVB-T")
* Bayern 1 (Germany - Bavaria, "DVB-T")
* Bayern 2 (Germany - Bavaria, "DVB-T")
* Bayern 3 (Germany - Bavaria, "DVB-T")
* Bayern 4 Klassik (Germany - Bavaria, "DVB-T")
* B5 aktuell (Germany - Bavaria, "DVB-T")
* RadioJojo (Germany, "DVB-T")
* Switzerland , "DVB-T")
* Radio Swiss Jazz (Switzerland, "DVB-T")

References

External links

* [http://www.ras.bz.it/ RAS]
* [http://www.provinz.bz.it] Autonomous Province of Bolzano-Bozen