What Is So Delicious About What Silvio Berlusconi Does Is That He Is So Blatant, So “In Your Face”. He Knows It. The Italians Know It. And He Gets Away With It.

Philip M. Stone - January 29, 2006

If you’re prime minister of Italy facing a general election in April, and you’re behind in the polls you’d want to get as much positive television exposure as possible in the weeks leading up to the election. Right? Especially if you control one way or the other some 90% of Italian television! But you know that once Parliament is dissolved there are very tough rules in Italy equalizing television exposure time for candidates, and banning political adverts. So what do you do?
Go To Follow Up & Comments

Obviously, you delay dissolving Parliament for as long as you can and in the meantime you appear on every television program that will have you as a guest. And that is exactly what Berlusconi has been doing for the past three weeks.

You also try and ban the law that restricts appearances and adverts once the campaign officially starts, especially if you are Italy’s richest citizen who can afford all the ads he wants, especially on his own stations. But even in Italy that was a step too far – practically all other political parties said “No”

It’s the President’s decision when Parliament is dissolved, and there is no love loss between the 85-year-old very respected President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Berlusconi, 69. But it is the government, not the President that sets the election date. Everyone in Italy knows the government has set the election for April 9. There had been agreement to dissolve Parliament on January 29, but Berlusconi has now basically forced Ciampi to accept that Parliament stays in session two additional weeks, until February 11.

And if the three past weeks are anything to go by, Berlusconi will use that time to show up all over the three state-owned RAI stations plus his own three Mediaset stations. But Ciampi is fighting back. He has written to the head of a parliamentary panel that oversees RAI to insist that strict rules be applied to ensure equal access to RAI, even before the start of the formal election campaign February 11, the day Parliament is dissolved.

Berlusconi wanted those two extra Parliamentary weeks not just for his unlimited television appearances but also for some last-minute personal business his government (he) wants finished. The prime minister was recently acquitted in a judge bribery case. But in Italy acquittals can be appealed. So naturally Berlusconi’s controlled Parliament passed a bill making appeals of acquittal much harder. But Ciampi refused to sign it because he said some parts were against the Constitution. So extra time is now necessary in Parliament to straighten that out.

Berlusconi’s coalition partner, the Northern Alliance, also needed to get a few final laws through. They included making it no longer a crime to deface the Italian flag. Some Northern Alliance members in the past have been convicted on such charges. They also passed a law that now allows Italians to shoot burglars and robbers in self-defense. Previously the person who did the shooting was the one who got charged.

Berlusconi needs all the good publicity he can get because he is facing some potential bad publicity due to hit right in the middle of the election campaign.  Italy’s anti-trust agency has said it will announce on March 13 the results of its investigation into whether Mediaset exceeded antitrust limits in buying broadcast frequencies from Europa TV that may give Mediaset a dominant position in the Digital Video Broadband Handheld (DVB-H) system broadcasting television to mobile phones.

And before March 13 the same antitrust authority will announce the results of its investigation into the government’s policy of subsidizing the cost of decoders needed to watch digital terrestrial television. It just so happens that Berlusconi’s Mediaset is Italy’s biggest digital broadcaster and the government has thus far funded some €200 million in subsidies at the retail level  to get digital decoders into Italian homes. The EC also has its own probe of the issue.

Berlusconi’s television appearances for the past three weeks has surprised just about everyone. Because he is the owner of AC Milan he showed up on a sports talk show to talk about football – the show has a guaranteed high audience in football-mad Italy.

He even showed up at the national road traffic radio station with some ideas about how to make the flow of traffic better, and on a TV program he announced he would write to 600,000 babies welcoming them and advising their parents how they can get a €1,000 state-funded baby bonus.

One estimate said that in two weeks Berlusconi had more than three hours of airtime compared to his main competitor, Romano Prodi, who had eight minutes.

Italians, of course, take all this in their stride. Some polls show that Berlusconi has closed the gap with his center-left opponents, but others show no change, and all still show him behind.

But of course the campaign has not officially started yet, and the country awaits what its richest billionaire will get up to next.

ftm Follow Up & Comments

Just What Italians Wanted In Their Mail – a 160-Page Glossy Biography of Silvio Berlusconi - April 3, 2006

With elections looming in a week (April 9-10) and polls showing he may be as much as five points behind, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is enticing Italian voters with a 160-page glossy magazine –The Real Italian Story – mailed to 11 million households. Naturally, the full color glossy portrays the 69-year-old billionaire in the best possible light in his meetings over the past five years with political and entertainment personalities.

And should you doubt that such an obvious ploy could work, in the last general election he mailed out a similar 125-page glossy and he won! Why mess with success?

And as prime minister with control over 90% of the Italian TV airwaves (public service broadcaster RAI and his own Mediaset channels) it seems that the supposedly strict equal access laws somehow don’t seem to be working too well. RAI admits that from February 11 to March 23, Berlusconi’s coalition received about 60% of the coverage compared to challenger Romano Prodi’s 40%.

And on one of the Mediaset channels, Rete4, in a similar period Berlusconi got about 80% of the coverage compared to Prodi’s coalition getting 20%.

Obviously someone at Mediaset is going to have to pay the ultimate price for allowing Prodi’s people that much coverage.

Berlusconi Can Now Rest; The Election Is On - February 12, 2006

The official Italian election campaign has begun which means that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi can now rest a bit after all of his appearances in recent weeks on television. With the advent of the official campaign appearances by political candidates are strictly controlled by law.

He had continued his appearances through a Friday night television talk show and then on Saturday Parliament was dissolved and the official campaign began with the election set for April 9th.

Berlusconi’s own polls show him about even with his main competitor, Romano Prodi who leads a center-left coalition. That coalition says it is about five points ahead.