NATPE Day: Prix Italia's nuts & bolts.

The 54th annual Prix Italia, sponsored by RAI, Italy's public broadcaster, and held in Palermo, Italy, September 14-21, will focus on new digital TV technologies, emphasizing the financial models necessary to finally bring digital terrestrial TV (DTT) into homes, during its NATPE DAY.

The first annual NATPE Day took place at last year's PRIX ITALIA in Bologna (the event is itinerant). This year's NATPE Day, on Thursday, September 19, will address enhanced TV and will try to discern how best to lead the industry to the threshold of a new communications era. NATPE is the Los Angeles-based international association of TV executives which annually organizes the largest program TV market in the U.S. in January.

"NATPE Day" is an entire day of meetings, seminars and workshops for a frank and constructive exchange between executives from American and European Television. This year's general theme is "Enhanced Television -- Fact or Fiction." The first panel is called The Big Picture (moderated by Alan Friedman) and will introduce the new frontiers of digital broadcasting. The next panel will be The Digital Terrestrial Picture (moderated by Dom Serafini). In the afternoon, there will be another two panels: one called The Technical and Regulatory Picture (moderated by Russell Kagan) and one called The Creative Picture (moderated by David Simon).

Speakers on the panels will be top-level international executives in the advertising, content, technology, broadcasting and regulatory fields, including Paramount's Gary Marenzi; Leonardo Chiariglione, called the "father" of MPEG (the compression standard at the heart of digital TV technology); Laura Turini, a lawyer specializing in digital rights; Nicoletta Iacobacci, a professor of interactive television; and Philips' Steve Turner.