The story of digital television policies in Italy provides an interesting casestudy to examine the interplay between domestic political dynamics and wider globalization processes in contemporary broadcasting policy-making. In particular, it serves well the purpose to illustrate certain constraints that national governments of advanced capitalist countries have faced in the context of broadcasting policy as well as some of the key strategic resources that they have deployed in order to maintain their control over the sector amid globalization processes.

In recent years, a body of literature has emerged that addresses these issues (eg, Skogerbo 1996; Levy 1997a and 1999; Curran and Park 2000; Galperin 2000 and 2004; Morris and Waisbord 2001; Corcoran 2002; Ward 2002; Harcourt 2002 and 2005; Chada and Kavoori 2005). This growing academic interest reflects developments in the real world. Over the last twenty years national broadcasting policy-making has become increasingly exposed to the influence of non-domestic actors primarily as a result of technological change and the ideological shift toward neo-liberal policies. A general trend toward the marketization of national broadcasting systems has been widely detected and typically associated with globalization processes (Murdock and Golding 1999; Murdock 2000; Chada and Kavoori 2005). However, it is also the case, as it is generally acknowledged, that broadcasting policy remains deeply embroiled in national politics. National broadcasting systems are still primarily shaped by domestic political dynamics. David Levy has explained the limited impact of the European Union (EU) on the broadcasting reform processes undertaken in France, Germany, and the UK in the second half of the 1990s by referring “to the strong, national institutional structures and