If you live in Italy, the government will give you 150 euro if you decide to buy or hire (lease) a decoder to receive terrestrial DTV. Italy on Line, in the article Digital TV: 150 Euro for Those Who Buy a Decoder indicated that this represented a discount of around 50 percent for decoders, which cost about 300 euros. The Italian government has allocated 110 million euro for these rebates, enough for 750,000 decoders. Shops participating in the program apply the discount at the time of purchase, once they confirm the decoder purchaser has paid the RAI license fee for the current year.
Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri said the program offers "a new incentive to go digital. Tens of thousands of decoders are already on the market. I personally am only looking at digital channels because the quality of the picture is much better than analogue." Gasparri added that he expects the cost of decoders will continue to fall.
