The rules on Serie A rights in Italy, introduced in 1980, regulate the live or delayed broadcasting of league competition within Italian territory.
Until 1980, sports facilities was managed by the municipalities with an open media policy, so television journalists staff were given access to all matches, typically at no cost.
Since 1960, the network has broadcast on Sundays at 7:00pm the delayed commentary of a Serie A match, without the payment of television rights or without this generating financial transactions of a commercial nature.
This is attested by the resolutions and related contracts between Rai and Lega Calcio, which until that moment had no formal and legally connoted relationship.
The contract was based on the Lega Calcio, in exchange for a sum of 3 billion lire, granting Rai the right to install cameras in stadiums to film matches.
The purpose of the agregen was for Rai, as a public body, to become a concessionaire of Lega Calcio, broadcasting football free of charge throughout Italy.
The emergence of FTA rights stems from the desire to limit television viewing of matches to season ticket holders only, with the sole aim of increasing revenue for football clubs.
[2] Despite the increase in television power, the presence of fans at the stadium continues, albeit with inevitable fluctuations, to maintain its fundamental role.
The football championship thus became the scene of competition between two satellite platforms: TELE + Digitale was opposed by Stream TV, owned by the Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch.
In this last season, the system began to enter into crisis, with many smaller clubs that were slow to sell the rights to one or the other broadcaster, declaring themselves dissatisfied with the financial offers, even causing the start of the championships to be postponed.
Regarding the play-offs, they were now included in the television rights of the entire championship (in relation to the teams involved), as they were now played in both the first and second rounds.
On 3 January 2004, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Italian television, digital terrestrial was born, which accompanied analogue TV and then definitively replaced it starting from 2012.
In the 2009–2010 season, Premium and Dahlia split the top division equally: each of the two terrestrial platforms offered the matches of 10 teams, 6 of which were full-house .
However, things went differently and the sharp drop in subscriptions caused Dahlia TV to be liquidated and the consequent cessation of all activities on 25 February 2011.
[11] After the closure of Dahlia TV, starting from the last 12 days of the 2010-2011 championship, only two television operators remained to offer live Serie A: Sky via satellite and Mediaset Premium via air.
On 15 July 2018, Mediaset Premium signed an agreement with the Perform group to be able to broadcast the channels of the DAZN platform on its network, and consequently also the matches offered by it.