Sanremo 2024: Fine for John Travolta’s Guest Appearance
The covert advertising of John Travolta’s shoes at Sanremo 2024 is sanctioned with a fine of over 200 thousand euros to RaiThe Authority’s Commission for Services and Products has approved a fine of Euro 206.580,00equal to twenty times the minimum fine, to Rai for violation of the provisions relating to the correct reporting of advertising messages during the ”74th edition of the Sanremo Italian Song Festival”, Agcom communicates in a note. ”The violation ascertained – we read in the note – concerns the hidden advertising of a well-known shoe brand during John Travolta’s performance together with Amadeus, the Festival’s host”.
The Authority considered the episode to be “extremely serious”, as the product was exposed during the main Rai television programme in terms of audience and during the performance of a guest of clear international fame, with significant prejudicial effects to the detriment of viewers.
Agcom also “deemed it appropriate to call upon Rai to a review of the Technical Specifications of the Televoting platformwith reference to the capacity to process higher flows of votes via SMS, in order to prevent similar future disruptions, communicating the actions taken to the Authority”. In the note, Agcom explains that ”the Communications Regulatory Authority has examined the results in today’s meeting of the checks carried out by the offices on compliance with the conditions of transparency and effectiveness of the televoting held on the occasion of the 74th edition of the Sanremo Festival, following the numerous reports received. Particular attention was paid to the progress of the Televoting on the occasion of the last evening of the Festival’‘.
”In the last evening, approximately 1.8 million votes were billed with relative feedback to the user via SMS, another approximately 0.9 million received an SMS of information of failed debit, while 0.3 million invalid votes, although processed, were not found – we read in the note – The checks carried out have shown that, in the face of a number of votes via SMS accounted for equal to approximately 3 million, the number of SMS actually received by the platform was approximately 9.5 million. The excess value not accounted for was caused by a saturation of the processing capacity of the televoting platform”.
”Furthermore, TIM communicated to the Authority that it had been aware of the aforementioned actual number of SMS received on the last evening, not during the Festival, but only following a subsequent analysisfollowing the Authority’s request for information – explains Agcom – TIM also reported that, following the Authority’s request for information, it analyzed the unaccounted SMS. Noting that approximately 4.3 million had exceeded the limit of 5 valid votes, with the consequence that the potentially valid and unprocessed votes were equal to approximately 2.2 million”.
