Rai 3

Logo used since 2016
Country	Italy
Broadcast area	Italy France (Corsica, southern portion) Switzerland (southern portion) Austria (southern portion) Slovenia (western portion) San Marino Vatican City
Headquarters	Rome, Italy
Programming
Language(s)	Italian
Picture format	1080i HDTV (downscaled to 16:9 576i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
Owner	RAI
Sister channels	Rai 1 Rai 2 Rai 4 Rai 5 Rai Gulp Rai Movie Rai News 24 Rai Premium Rai Scuola Rai Sport Rai Storia Rai Yoyo Rai Ladinia Rai Südtirol Rai Italia
History
Launched	15 December 1979; 45 years ago (1979-12-15)
Former names	Rete 3 (1979–1982) Rai Tre (1982–2010)
Links
Website	rai.it/rai3
Availability
Terrestrial
Digital terrestrial television	Channel 103 (HD) Channel 503 (SD)
Streaming media
RaiPlay	Live streaming (Only in Italy)

Rai 3 (formerly Rete 3) is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It was launched on 15 December 1979 and its programming is centred towards cultural and regional programming. It has always been considered the most left-leaning channel of Italian public television. Rai 3 is a direct competitor to Mediaset's Rete 4.

In the Aosta Valley, Rai 3 broadcasts programmes in French as well as in Valdôtain dialect.^[1]

In the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, Rai Südtirol timeshares broadcast hours in German with Rai 3 when not broadcasting.

In the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, Rai 3 BIS (TDD Furlanija Julijska Krajina) is a separate channel which broadcasts daily from 18:40 with a half-hour daily newscast in Slovene, and other shows in Slovene.^[2][3] In accordance with a bilateral cooperation agreement between Italy and Slovenia, Slovene-language shows produced by Rai 3 Bis are also aired on the Slovenian regional television channel TV Koper-Capodistria and on State-owned TV Slovenija 2.

A few shows include:

• TG3, Rai 3 main news service
• TGR, regional news service
• Doc3
• Quante storie (Rai 3, from 2019)
• Che tempo che fa, from 15 October 2023 broadcast on Nove, a Television channel edited by Discovery Italia, a Warner Bros. Discovery group division.
• Chi l'ha Visto?
• Un Posto al sole (A Place in the Sun) a soap opera airing on Rai 3 since October 21, 1996.
• Vieni via con me
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch
• Law & Order
• Friends
• Desperate Housewives
• The Defenders
• The Spaghetti Family
• Glob
• Inspector Gadget
• Melevisione
• Buongiorno Estate
• UEFA Europa League (one game per matchday live, the possibility of broadcasting all semi-finals due to law 8/99 if at least an Italian team is involved)
• UEFA Europa Conference League (one game per matchday live, the possibility of broadcasting all semi-finals due to law 8/99 if at least an Italian team is involved)

• Gazebo (2013-2017)^{[N 1]}

• Il complicato mondo di Nathalie (2024)^{[N 2] [4]}
• I profumi di madame Walberg (2024)^{[N 3] [5]}

• NewsRoom [it] (2024)
• Mano a mano [it] (2024)

• 
  3 October 1983 – 26 September 1988
• 
  26 September 1988 – 23 October 2000
• 
  In use from 23 October 2000 to 18 May 2010
• 
  In use from 18 May 2010 to 12 September 2016
• 
  In use since 12 September 2016

• Delio De Martino, Per una storia di Raitre. Premessa di Raffaele Nigro, Bari, Levante Editori, 2009, ISBN 978-88-7949-531-8.

• Official Site (in Italian)
• Rai 3 on Facebook