Italian media company Profit has acquired local broadcaster Odeon TV, in a bid to build a satellite television network that could break RAI and Mediaset's stranglehold on the Italian TV advertising market.

Milan-based Odeon TV owns 16 stations nationwide and has an average audience of about 4-5 million. Profit owns children's channel Junior TV and several TV production companies.

Italy's National Telecommunications Authority recently cleared broadcasting giants Mediaset and RAI of charges of monopolising the national advertising market. However the ruling met with criticism, both politically and in the TV sector, for blocking the growth of smaller TV companies.

Profit is not the first company to attempt to break RAI and Mediaset's duopoly; Italy's Cecchi Gori Group struggled to achieve the same with its loss-making TeleMonteCarlo network which it recently sold to Telecom Italia.