What doesn’t add up in Rai’s explanations regarding the closure of the Rai Scuola channel

Rai has responded to criticism regarding the closure of the Rai Scuola channel with a press release entitled "Rai Scuola evolves: more digital, more accessible, closer to students". The problem begins with the verb itself. According to Rai, "there are no plans to discontinue Rai Scuola’s editorial offering" and therefore "Rai Scuola is not closing: it is evolving". This is true if by ‘Rai Scuola’ one means the brand, the catalogue of programmes and future educational production; the Rai Scuola television channel, currently on channel 57, is indeed closing down. Back in June, Rai itself had spoken, more precisely, of ‘moving beyond the linear model of Rai Scuola’.

No one had claimed that Rai intended to remove educational programmes from its archives or to stop producing them altogether. The issue was quite different: why shut down the television channel that broadcasts them? To reply that the content will continue to exist is to shift the focus of the question.

The main justification is that Rai Scuola needs to become "more digital" and bring content "to where the students are", making it available when needed via connected televisions, computers, tablets and smartphones. This argument would make sense if Rai Scuola were finally to launch online. It is regrettable that this is already the case. Today, Rai Scuola is available live on RaiPlay, alongside the other Rai channels, whilst its programmes are already available on demand; RaiPlay Learning, for its part, has been around for years.

What Rai has announced is therefore not the switch of Rai Scuola from linear to digital broadcasting. Digital broadcasting already exists and will be enhanced; what is being phased out is the linear channel. Currently, Rai Scuola is available both via the linear channel on digital terrestrial television and via RaiPlay and the web; from 1 October, the former will be discontinued, whilst the online service will be reorganised and enhanced. Calling this removal an ‘evolution in distribution and consumption methods’ does not make it an addition.

It is equally peculiar to argue that "educational content must be available when students need it, not just when it is broadcast". Certainly, and that is precisely why on-demand services already exist. No one is suggesting replacing it with the television schedule. The two forms of distribution are complementary: one allows you to search for a lesson when you need it, whilst the other also reaches those who have not logged into RaiPlay with the specific intention of looking for it. The advantage of the former justifies its expansion; it provides no reason to eliminate the latter.

Even the phrase "more accessible" in the headline is a claim, not a proven fact. For some users, the new service may certainly become better and easier to use; for viewers who currently access Rai Scuola via their television, one means of access is simply being removed. To determine whether more people will ultimately be reached, one would need to compare the audience gained through digital enhancement with that lost by abandoning the linear channel. Rai does not present this comparison.

You should be well aware of the importance of this. In its 2024 annual report, Rai notes that, following the switch to DVB-T2 and the consequent redistribution of channels across the multiplexes, for those directly affected (Rai Scuola, Rai Storia and Rai Radio2 Visual), the decline in net Auditel viewership figures was close to 50 per cent. The programmes were still there; however, due to the changed conditions of access, a huge proportion of the audience could no longer reach them. This is proof, provided by the company itself, that the availability of content and the ability to reach the audience are not one and the same thing.

The press release then attempts to use viewing figures against the channel, citing the 0.14 per cent audience share in 2024, the 0.13 per cent in 2025 and the decline in the early months of 2026, concluding that these figures demonstrate "the limitations of linear television as a means of reaching the school-age audience broadly and systematically". Here, the problem is no longer merely the presentation: it is the reasoning. A share calculated across the entire television audience indicates what proportion of that audience is watching Rai Scuola; it does not measure the ability to reach the "school-age audience". To make the latter claim, data on penetration amongst pupils and teachers would be required, along with a comparison with the figures achieved via RaiPlay. The press release does not provide these.

It also omits a key fact necessary for interpreting those figures: the 0.13–0.14 per cent for 2023–2025 represents one of the highest levels achieved by Rai Scuola in its recent history. The channel is therefore being axed after a three-year period in which it had consolidated viewing figures well above those of previous years. In 2026, there is a decline, and this should be noted; however, it is not enough to retroactively transform the previous growth into proof of the failure of linear broadcasting.

And that 0.14 per cent does not correspond to a non-existent audience: in February 2024, for example, a 0.14 per cent share corresponded to an average of 13,322 viewers, i.e. those present on average every minute of the day. Daily net contacts are necessarily a much higher figure, in the hundreds of thousands, but Rai does not provide these figures in its press release. This is not the audience of a general-interest broadcaster, and no one could claim otherwise; it is the audience of a highly specialised educational channel – an audience that is an asset to be carefully preserved rather than squandered. Before claiming that this audience is better reached elsewhere, it would be useful to present the data to back up that claim.

Finally, there remains the point that renders the entire justification based on "moving beyond the linear model" particularly fragile. From 1 October, channel 57 will not be taken off air. It will be occupied by a new linear channel, dedicated to Italy. Rai presents it as a programme line-up centred on landscapes, villages, traditions, ‘Made in Italy’, food and wine, tourism, folklore and national events; it will also launch with a ‘re-run programme’, to which reruns, new productions and live broadcasts are expected to be added from the following quarter.

This settles the technical issue. Rai does not consider the linear thematic channel model to be obsolete, as it is launching a new one on the very same day that it is discontinuing Rai Scuola. It considers the linear broadcasting of educational content to be obsolete, whilst it considers the coverage of local communities to be worthy of linear broadcasting.

It may be an editorial decision. It may depend on the capacity available on the multiplexes and therefore on the need to decide which channel to allocate it to. It may even be a decision that Rai considers beneficial in terms of audience reach. However, none of these possibilities matches the explanation given in the press release. If there is only room for one channel and Rai decides to allocate it to Italiana, the issue concerns the priority given to two different functions of the public service.

This is why the final reference to ‘distracted observers’ – who are said to have missed a logic that is ‘so’ obvious – is particularly unfortunate. To a distracted observer, it may indeed seem as though an old television channel is finally being transformed into a modern digital platform. One need only look at what Rai already offers today to discover that the digital platform already exists, that Rai Scuola is already available on RaiPlay, and that the linear service – which is said to have become unsuitable for schools – is simultaneously considered perfectly suited to a new regional channel.

The question therefore remains exactly the same as before. If the new RaiPlay Scuola e Learning is set to improve the educational offering, why must we also give up the audience that Rai Scuola currently reaches via digital terrestrial television in order to improve it? And if the viewing figures really do demonstrate the "limitations of linear television", why is that very same linear television service immediately being handed over to Italiana?

The press release explains why Rai wishes to invest in educational digital content – a decision to which it is difficult to raise objections, and an idea that has, moreover, been discussed for some time; but this does not explain why, in order to do so, it must take Rai Scuola off Channel 57.

Writing unpersuasive press releases that grasp at straws through petulant responses serves no purpose whatsoever.