Sherin Salvetti joined A+E Networks Italy as GM in 2003 and reports to London-based Dean Possenniskie, managing director, EMEA, who, in turn, reports to A+E Networks’ EVP Sean Cohan in New York City. Previously, Salvetti worked at RAI, National Geographic and when the channel became part of FOX International Channels Italy, she served as SVP. 20 channel in terms of production investments. [In addition] the biggest marketing campaigns are dedicated to promoting our Italian originals.” Salvetti explained, “We commission programs to Italian production companies. In the past [for History] we have been producing multi-season, long-running documentary series, a genre I would define as ‘classical’ with an edge (like Forbidden History of ItalyandMurders). Recently, we turned into more ambitious miniseries with more re-enactments and higher production values.” Both History and C+I are exclusive to pay-TV platformSky Italia (part of News Corp group) and available to 4.7 million satellite TV subscribers. While History is on Sky channel 407, C+I is on channel 118 because C+I is distributed with the Sky Entertainment package (EPG 100 onward) and History is part of the documentary package (EPG 400 onward). Sky Pubblicitá, Sky’s internal ad sales team, sells advertising on both channels. According to Salvetti, C+I, “had a great start in the market and History confirmed the power of its brand and it’s programming, but we want to see the ad sales revenue grow in time.” Both History and C+I are 24/7 channels with vertical schedules and vertical “PT blocks.” She elaborated that “PT blocks” mean “two to three hour vertical blocks of the same series with different episodes scheduled back-to-back or a themed night. Our schedule is not made of repeated blocks, but it is built on different titles scheduled in different time slots according to Italian viewing habits.” Detailed Salvetti, “[At History] we tend to premiere on weekdays and offer viewers a second chance with repeats on the weekend, mainly in daytime. [C+I] has a stripped daytime and vertical ‘PT’ themed blocks.” In addition she reported, “Monday to Friday we run stripped series in significant time slots.” In conclusion, History and C+I represent American ingenuity that knows how to valorize the assets of a country such as Italy, leveraging both its resources and talents: elements that, ironically, Italians tend to discard. Another example is provided by the success of American and British cooking shows and formats on Italian television. These tend to originate from creative people, who grew up with McDonald’s and fish and chips and are now on television teaching Italians how to cook the Italian dishes that are popular worldwide. Italy can be considered a hotbed of rich history dating back 3,000 years, as well as the breeding ground of organized crime since the 1850s. With these kinds of material riches, it was natural for a television company to bring two niche channels about history and crime to Italy. This task fell to the New York City-based A+E Networks, which in 2003 launched the History Channel and in 2013 the Crime + Investigation Channel (C+I), both based in Rome. But one could ask, “Why did it take so long?” since History Channel was launched in the U.S. and internationally in 1995 and C+I started in Australia in 2005, a country with a much lower crime index than Italy. The answer was provided by A+E Networks’ EVP Sean Cohan during an interview with VideoAge published last April: “Preparing to launch a channel is a time-consuming proposition. Before launching in Italy, we were in talks with the Italian platform for four years.” In effect, a history channel already existed in the country, launched in 2000 by RAI, Italy’s state broadcaster as part of RAI Educational, and in 2009 it was spun off as RAI Storia on digital terrestrial TV channel 54. In addition, other Italian-language channels (such as Focus and Discovery) occasionally run historic documentaries and there are a few shows about history on RAI and Mediaset’s FTA networks. However, explained Sherin Salvetti, general manager of A+E Networks Italy, “History is the first and only HD channel dedicated to history. Its programming offer is a mix of history-themed documentaries, character-driven male-oriented factual entertainment series and docu-dramas. RAI Storia, which depends on RAI’s archives, runs more classical history shows, mainly black and white archive-based documentaries. In terms of demo target, History has a younger and upper scale demo.” But she added, “Only History and RAI Storia are vertically themed.” C+I is another intelligent affiliation with Italy, a country with four major organized crime families in the regions of Sicily (Cosa Nostra), Calabria (’Ndrangheta), Puglia (Santa Corona Unita) and in the city of Naples (Camorra). In addition, in Italy there are an estimated 1,000 unresolved criminal cases per year, representing 40 percent of all crimes in the country. And this it is without counting the 46 current members of Parliament who are under investigation and three who have been convicted. This is compared to 66 members of the previous Parliament who were investigated, plus 50 who were convicted. Reported Salvetti: “If I look back at the first six months of the [C+I] channel, during which we launched a campaign against violence on women, I can forecast a future really full of local events. Just to mention what’s coming next, we are working on a special on one of the biggest and most mysterious murders in this country.” She also said, “C+I is only a baby, but we are proud to say that Italian content was in the schedule since the very first days with two original productions: Secrets, Lies and Murders and a local version of Beyond Scared Straight.” On the History Channel, Salvetti said that Italian content, “in terms of volume is not a big figure, but Italian history has a big weight on the By Dom Serafini History and Crime: Italy’s New Imports In the Land of History and Crime June/July 2014 Channel Business “In terms of volume [Italian content] is not a big figure, but Italian history has a big weight on the channel in terms of production investments.” — Sherin Salvetti
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