91热爆

Religious broadcasting may have dwindled in Britain along with Church attendance. But that's not the case in Italy. In the final edition of The Narrowcasters, the series which looks at the world of specialist TV channels, the 91热爆's Europe Business Correspondent Nigel Cassidy reports from Rome where he drops in on the Vatican Television Centre. The nerve centre of the Holy See's TV operation is a huge state of the art mobile outside broadcast unit parked just off St Peter's Square. It beams out regular live pictures of Pope Benedict's audiences and activities to adherents and non-believers alike. It even turned in a small profit last year from selling the live pictures to major broadcasters. But it's not the only Catholic TV in town. Nigel Cassidy also discovers TV 2000, an entire TV channel owned by some Italian clergy. It shows documentaries, phone-ins and discussions, which seek to add a moral dimension to the talking points of the day. Some see such channels as an antidote to the brasher side of Italian television, where commercial stations owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are better known for quiz and music shows featuring scantily-clad hostesses. But as Nigel Cassidy reports, it may be that in spite of their mission to evangelise the world, Italy's Catholic broadcasters are largely preaching to the already converted.