Festival of Italian Song To Continue

The once-threatened Festival of Italian Song has been secured for 2003 after lengthy, intense negotiations about expenses among state broadcaster RAI, the city of Sanremo, and music industry bodies FIMI and AFI.

RAI has agreed to reimburse record labels for the transport and accommodation costs of participants at Sanremo's live-music event, a long-running point of contention. The broadcaster will pay an additional 750,000 euros ($755,000) in expenses to record companies, on top of last year's 650,000 euros ($654,800).

Universal Music Italy president/CEO Piero La Falce tells Bulletin that his decision not to send artists to last year's festival--along with a similar threat by EMI Italy--has been generally credited with encouraging RAI and the city of Sanremo to negotiate. "This is a great piece of news, even if work still needs to be done on the festival itself," he says. "The event has, however, been saved, and now I think we can work together to make it as good as possible."