Italy traditionally celebrates Republic Day on 2nd June. Yet, given the high rates of unemployment, a pretty bad economic situation and a draft bill containing deficit-cutting measures that will ask Italians to make further sacrifices and will also cut more funds to culture, there isn’t much to celebrate at the moment.
In the meantime, Erik Gandini’s Videocracy is released this week in the UK. The documentary, presented at last year's Venice Film Festival and banned in many cinemas across Italy (though available on DVD), focuses on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and on his media power, while chronicling through dementedly bad Italian TV shows the descent into Hell of Italian culture and society (among the people interviewed by Gandini there are also sleazy characters such as Lele Mora, Italy's top "talent" agent, - the guy with the fascist hymns on his mobile phone in the Videocracy trailer embedded - and paparazzo Fabrizio Corona...)
Apart from being a politician and the Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi also owns TV channels, newspapers and a publishing empire, and as Prime Minister, he also influences the state Italian broadcaster, Rai.
I'm going to dedicate this post to Berlusconi and his influence on the means of communication, a dangerously fascinating subject that will hopefully give you an insight on the decadence of contemporary Italian society (and don't think such a topic doesn't have anything to do with fashion, because, Suzy Menkes docet, it does...) and will also provide some background information if you are going to watch Gandini's documentary.
Often condemned by the OSCE media freedom representatives in previous years as "a challenge to the European constitutional architecture", Berlusconi's conflict of interest between the holding of political office and his private
economic and media interests has been for years a threat to media pluralism and a bad example for any democracy in the world.
The draft law currently being discussed that provides heavy penalties for editors and journalists who publish interceptions is just the latest step towards a neo-fascist silent state in which publishing embarrassing stories about the Prime Minister & Co or pursuing criminal investigations if you are a magistrate will land you in jail.
A man with no political plan apart from changing all laws in his favour, Berlusconi mainly managed to get where he is thanks to a clever Orwellian plan, using his channels for his own propaganda and reducing the news programme of the main Italian TV state channel to a mix of optimistic lies and useless news.
So let's go backward in time and rediscover the origins of Berlusconi’s luck and wealth and of his media empire.
From building contractor to entrepreneur
Silvio Berlusconi was born in 1936, in the outskirts of Milan where he lived with his parents Luigi, who worked for a local bank, Banca Rasini, and Rosa, housewife. He went to school in a religious institute in Milan and later enrolled at the faculty of law at the Università Statale di Milano.
During summer, he embarked on the Costa cruise boats as entertainer (where - allowed me to add - he should have remained for the safety of Italy, Europe and the entire world…). He sang, told jokes and worked as a sort of stand-up comedian, in a nutshell he did the same things he does now as a Prime Minister (with the difference that nobody knew who he was then...). Sometimes he also worked in bars or other venues in Rimini, often together with his friend Fedele Confalonieri, who used to accompany him on the piano.
After finishing university in 1961, Berlusconi found his first job in the building trade. He had seen a piece of land in an area of Milan and wanted to buy it and start building new houses there. Carlo Rasini, manager of the bank where Luigi Berlusconi worked, introduced the young man to Pietro Canali, client of the bank and builder. Together with Canali, Berlusconi funded a company, the Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi srl, then bought the land he had seen with a loan obtained from Banca Rasini and with 10 million lire, a sum of money Berlusconi claimed he had saved while working on cruise boats, but was actually given to him by his father.
When Cantieri Riuniti finished building in the area, the company concluded its activities and was officially closed. Berlusconi then founded another company to complete a grand project. In 1963 he planned to build residential houses in Brugherio, in the North of Milan. For the occasion, Berlusconi founded, together with Rasini and Canali among the others, a new company named this time Edilnord. Even though all the members of the new company had invested money in the new buildings, the largest sum of money given to Edilnord came from a mysterious financial company based in Switzerland.
The houses were soon completed, but Edilnord was not as successful as Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi and Berlusconi decided to get rid of the members of the company and to start another project with the money offered again by his mysterious sources in Switzerland. His new project was called Milano 2 and it was conceived as a “new town" built for yuppies and new riches in the outskirts of Milan, Segrate.
The City Hall of Segrate gave Edilnord the first building licence on 12th May 1969, but the Province Council of Milan opposed to the Edilnord project since it violated a law issued by the local councils that stated no houses could have been built on those territories. But when the Council was substituted with a Commissione regionale di controllo (Regional control commission), politically oriented towards Psi (Partito Socialista Italiano, Italian Socialist Party), things suddenly changed.
The Segrate City Hall gave Edilnord the final licence to build Milano 2 in 1972 and the works finally started. Again mysterious sums of money coming from Switzerland financed Milano 2, but there was also money coming from another company that helped financing the Segrate project. Edilnord had been closed in 1972, but while it was still opened, a new company, Edilnord centri residenziali sas, belonging to Lidia Borsari & C. (Berlusconi's cousin), had been funded in 1968. Lidia Borsari was only a nominee since the company actually belonged to Berlusconi himself. The money to fund this new company had been given by another mysterious Swiss financial company based in Lugano. In 1970, the new nominee of the company became Maria Bossi Borsani (Lidia Borsani's mother), the capital of the company increased and the company prospered till 1978, when Milano 2 was completed.
When the Segrate project was finished, a new company was formed, Milano 2 spa, with money coming from another company, Immobiliare San Martino spa, based in Rome, funded in 1977 and administered by Marcello Dell'Utri. More building societies were funded in the following years: in 1976 the Istifi, Istituto italiano di finanziamento e investimento spa; in 1977 Edilnord progetti spa and Società Italiana gestioni spa; in 1978 Cantieri riuniti milanesi spa and two financial societies, Compagnia italiana finanziaria immobiliare srl and Società finanziaria edilizia srl. In the meantime, the Milano 2 company became bigger and bigger thanks to the money it constantly received from bank loans and Swiss financial companies.
In 1978 the same members that founded Milano 2, launched in Rome another company, Fininvest finanziaria d'Investimento srl. In the following year Fininvest was moved to Milan and formed a joint venture with the local Fininvest. In 1979, Silvio Berlusconi became Fininvest administrator, Paolo Berlusconi and Giancarlo Foscale, his brother and his cousin, became advisers. At the time, Fininvest capital was 52 billion lire and its administrator was still interested in the building business.
In the '70s Berlusconi completed the new residential area Milano 3 and the shopping mall Il Girasole, both in the south of Milan. Then he moved his interests to the coasts of Sardinia where he planned to build Olbia 2, another residential area. At the end of the '70s, journalists started hinting at the relationships between Berlusconi and mafia boss Vito Ciancimino, who had interests in investing money in the North of Italy, and between the entrepreneur and the Masonic Lodge P2: critics claimed Berlusconi seemed to have made too much money in such a short time. Years passed and, after Berlusconi's colonisation of private TV channels, economists and politicians stated that Fininvest was the result of a project planned by P2.
The colonisation of Italian TV
Berlusconi launched the TV channel Telemilano in 1973. Devised as a supplementary service for the Milano 2 residents, the channel started broadcasting in 1974 exclusively in the Milano 2 area. Telemilano programmes were mostly films and news programmes containing information and advice for the people living in the area. The channel could not broadcast its programmes all over Italy because, according to the 1954 law on communications, Rai, the Italian State TV, detained the monopoly of broadcastings on the whole Italian territory.
During the electoral campaign for the 20th June 1976 elections, the Segrate channel supported the election of two candidates of the Christian Democracy party (Dc), Roberto Mazzotta and Massimo De Carolis, and one candidate of the Italian Socialist Party (Psi), Bettino Craxi. By offering to advertise their parties and candidates on his channel, Berlusconi consolidated his links with Dc and Psi.
In July of the same year, the Constitutional Court declared that both Rai and all the private channels that broadcast over the air on a local basis were legal. At the time, Dc and Psi controlled the general direction and the presidency of the State TV and had divided the channels among themselves: RaiUno was now directed by the Christian Democrats, RaiDue by the Italian Socialist Party.
On 5th July, Berlusconi who had recently been nominated Cavaliere del Lavoro declared in an interview that he wanted to support the Christian Democracy
party and the Italian Socialist Party putting his channel Telemilano at their disposal. The power of the two parties also increased on printed paper since they were supported by anticommunist broadsheet Il Giornale of which Berlusconi already owned most of the shares.
On the following year, Berlusconi bought the Teatro Manzoni (Manzoni Theatre) in Milan and enrolled in the Masonic Lodge P2 (Propaganda 2), directed by the venerable Master Licio Gelli. The lodge had a Piano di rinascita democratica (Plan for a democratic rebirth) that had as main principle the acquisition and control of the means of communication in Italy and the immediate "constitution of a via cable TV channel".
P2 wanted to create a network of private channels that could be "co-ordinated…to control the public opinion" and could destroy Rai monopoly. Gelli knew the media had power and hoped that, once P2 launched proper TV channels, that power would have passed in the hands of his Masonic lodge.
In 1979, Fininvest founded various "TV societies" (Publitalia 80 srl, Rete Italia srl, Cofint spa, followed in 1980 by Video Time spa and Video Time Finanziaria spa) and became the major shareholder of Il Giornale. Fininvest launched Canale 5, another company that substituted Telemilano and bought in the States hours and hours of serials, films and various programmes to be broadcast on Canale 5.
Fininvest also began broadcasting on a national level with an expedient: the company bought Italian regional private channels or opened new local channels, then offered them to be part of a national network that was allowed to broadcast the same programmes and the same ads broadcast on Canale 5, from pre-recorded tapes. The company also began broadcasting over the air all over Italy claiming this was not illegal since all the material wasn’t broadcast live but from pre-recorded tapes.
In February 1980, a lower court judge in Genoa opened an investigation on Canale 5 because the programmes of the Fininvest channel were broadcast on a private channel in Liguria and this was against the 1976 Constitutional Court decision. The government suggested to create a new law to regulate the Italian media, but no law was ever issued and Fininvest continued to ignore TV regulations.
On 20th May 1981, one of the biggest scandal in the whole history of the Italian Republic was announced on the pages of newspapers. The list of the members of the Masonic Lodge P2 was finally revealed: it contained 900 people, ministers, politicians, heads of the secret services, journalists, entrepreneurs, there were P2 members even in the state TV and, after such a scandal, the Forlani government had to resign.
While these events were happening and while Italian private channels owners kept on complaining about Canale 5 (there were 30 private channels in the Canale 5 network), two publishers, following Berlusconi's example, decided to open two different networks: Rusconi funded Italia 1 (that included 23 channels) and Mondadori opened Retequattro (also with 23 channels). On 1st February 1982 Rai sued the three networks for broadcasting their programmes nationally.
Berlusconi answered Rai's attack stating: "We oppose the arrogance of the State TV which, with its economical and informative terrorism, is trying to destroy a private TV network which is watched by 25 million Italians". In October, during a meeting organised by the Psi in Milan, Craxi's supporters told Rusconi and Mondadori that, when a new media law would have been issued, the Psi would have included in it a clause that stated no publishing house or newspaper could own a TV channel, a law that already existed "in the United States and in all the countries of the world to avoid media power being concentrated only in one man's hands."
The result of the Psi threats was that in November 1982, Rusconi sold his network to Fininvest. The publisher later stated that Italia 1 could not compete with Canale 5 because Fininvest seemed to have unlimited amounts of money. In May 1983, at the beginning of the campaign for the 27th June elections, while Rai could not broadcast any political advertisement, the two Fininvest channels became the main means of communication for the Dc and Psi propaganda.
Fininvest channels also got more and more money than Rai thanks to advertisements: while Rai could only broadcast a limited amount of ads, Canale 5 and Italia 1 did not have any limits, hence they could interrupt their programmes as many times as they wanted to broadcast as many sponsored campaigns they wanted.
In 1984, Fininvest added to its media empire Retequattro, bought from Mondadori for 135 billion lire. In October of the same year, a Turin magistrate ordered Fininvest to stop broadcasting in Piemonte. Two magistrates in Rome and Pescara did the same banning Fininvest from Lazio and Abruzzo. The three magistrates "censored" Fininvest claiming that, according to the law, private channels could not broadcast their programmes on a national basis. From then on Fininvest started a sort of war against the three orders, trying to convince Italians that the magistrates' decisions were violating the population’s rights to freedom of expression.
Fininvest campaign put pressure on the citizens of Piemonte, Lazio and Abruzzo with a strategy that had to discourage magistrates from other regions to issue the same orders and stop Berlusconi's monopoly. Meanwhile, on 20th October, Craxi announced the creation of a decree to provisionally authorise Fininvest channels to broadcast live over the air all over the country. Communist Party MP Achille Occhetto stated the decision went against the constitution and, though the so-called decreto-Berlusconi (Berlusconi-decree) was approved by the Chamber on 25th October, it was declared unconstitutional on 27th November.
At the beginning of December, Craxi issued a second decree, the decreto-Berlusconi-bis (second Berlusconi-decree): the decree formally divided Rai between Dc, Psi and Pci, stated that the general direction of Rai would be controlled by the Dc while Rai 3 would be directed by the communist opposition, and decided the private monopoly of Fininvest had to be shared between Craxi and the Dc. The decree was passed as constitutional in the Upper Chamber on 12th December, and on 4th February 1985 it was also approved by the Parliament. The decree had to be valid for six months, in the meantime a proper law on Italian media should have been issued.
At the beginning of June, the new law was not ready, so Craxi extended the decree till 31st December 1985, issuing in this way the third Berlusconi-decree. While protecting Berlusconi's monopoly, Craxi also penalised Rai since he did not authorise new curbs on the broadcasting of sponsored promotions for Rai and did not elect new directors even though the old charges had expired in June 1983 and Rai urgently needed a new management.
When December came, a new sentence from the Court of Rome stated that Fininvest broadcastings were legal and on 3rd January 1986, the Craxi government announced that on the basis of the Court of Rome decision, the Berlusconi decree would have been valid indeterminately. The illegal monopoly suddenly became legal: Italian TV had officially become a "duopoly".
During the following year Canale 5, Italia 1 and Retequattro were used again as means of propaganda for the new political elections, the Psi ad was one of the most broadcast on Fininvest channels and, thanks to it, the party increased its support at the 14th of June elections.
In July 1988, the Constitutional Court stated again that only the state TV could broadcast on a national level and that if the Parliament hadn't issued a proper law on the means of communication as soon as possible, the Berlusconi decree would have been considered as unconstitutional. In December 1989, Fininvest bought Mondadori: Berlusconi's media concentration included the monopoly of private TV channels and the control of the most important publishing house in Italy and was the first of its kind in the Western world.
Berlusconi was elected Mondadori chairman in 1990, in the same year the government issued a media law. This law took its name after the then Minister for Posts Oscar Mammì and was prepared by the Andreotti government helped by Craxi. The law did not actually regulate anything, it only legalised the duopoly between Rai and Fininvest. Before the law was passed in the Parliament, Fininvest bought three new networks, Telepiù 1, 2 and 3 and started broadcasting news programmes.
Canale 5's news programme, Tg5, was directed by a Craxi supporter, Enrico Mentana (who left last year Canale 5 after his request to broadcast a special news programme instead of the Big Brother was refused); Italia 1's Studio Aperto was directed by ex-social-democrat Emilio Fede and later by another Craxi supporter, Paolo Liguori, while Fede passed to the Tg4 on Retequattro.
Though for a while the alliance between Fininvest, the Dc and the Psi worked rather well, things soon changed: at the beginning of the '90s another scandal exploded in Italy. Magistrates started an inquiry later called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) from the pool of investigative magistrates who later discovered the so-called Tangentopoli (Bribesville).
Everyone in the political world was suddenly involved in the scandal: Craxi received four notifications of investigation and resigned from the office of Psi secretary. Fininvest was also involved in the inquiries: the prosecutor's office in Milan found in a Swiss account 21 billion lire that, according to the magistrates were bribes given by Berlusconi to Bettino Craxi.
In April 1993 Craxi asked Berlusconi to start a new political party that could preserve the Dc and Psi tradition and could have contrasted the Communist Party. The new party should have also supported and helped Fininvest since, without any political support, there wasn’t any future for the company. Fininvest formed the Forza Italia party in 1993, though the party, was officially born in 1994.
Berlusconi stood as candidate for the 1994 elections: the Forza Italia ads literally invaded Finivest's channels. No other party could compete with him, a "self-made man" who promised Italians there would have been wealth and jobs for everybody.
At the time, Ds (Democratici di sinistra, Left Wing Democrats) leader, Massimo D'Alema, defined Berlusconi as an "anomaly": he was a politician and he owned the country's means of communication.
For the 1994 elections, Forza Italia formed an alliance with Lega Nord (Northern League, the party led by Umberto Bossi who would like to achieve devolution for Northern Italy) in the North of the country and with Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) in the centre-South. Berlusconi’s party obtained the majority of votes and in May of the same year, the first Berlusconi government was formed: it was the first government with a Prime Minister who had an embarrassing conflict of interests.
Berlusconi owned the one and only Italian private TV network, but as head of the government he controlled also the State TV and was the owner of one of the richest companies in Italy, Fininvest, that controlled newspapers, publishing houses, foreign channels, cinemas and movie distribution companies, building companies and a football team.
On 14th July Berlusconi started reforming Rai: his entrepreneur friend Letizia Moratti (current mayor of Milan) became Rai Chairwoman and two Fininvest journalists, Carlo Rossella and Clemente J. Mimun became directors of the two Rai news programmes, Tg1 and Tg2. Berlusconi's channels also started a campaign to defame the Milan magistrates who had accused Fininvest of being involved in the Tangentopoli scandal.
On 7th December the Constitutional Court claimed the Mammì law was "incoherent and unreasonable" and could not ensure TV pluralism. A few days after, the Lega Nord retired its support to the government and Fininvest channels started discrediting Umberto Bossi, the leader of the party.
The First Berlusconi government ended and was substituted with the Lamberto Dini government supported by the centre-left parties and by the Lega Nord and opposed by Berlusconi's party. A referendum was organised to abolish the Mammì law in 1995, but the "no" faction won and no changes were done to the law.
In 1996 the elections were won by the centre-left party Ulivo (Olive Tree) and in May the Prodi government was formed. In the same year, Fininvest changed its structure funding a company, Mediaset, that had to manage Berlusconi’s private TV channels, Italians were also offered to buy Mediaset shares. The majority of the shares, 57% remained in the hands of Fininvest which in this way still controlled the private TV monopoly in Italy and at the same time paid its debts with the money of the shareholders.
A new reform of the Italian media was done in 1997. The reform established a Telecommunication Authority (divided among the various parties included Forza Italia) and decided that one of the Mediaset channels (Retequattro) should have been moved to the satellite. The reform was named Maccanico law (after the Minister for Posts Antonio Maccanico) and was accepted by the Parliament. So, while there were no proper media laws in Italy to regulate Berlusconi's empire, he had all the time to continue his propaganda on his own channels.
This was the main reason why Forza Italia won the 2001 elections (the party was again supported by Lega Nord whose leader became a close friend of Berlusconi). When Il Cavaliere won the 2001 elections, he finally put two of his aims into practice: he stopped the Mani Pulite trials, in which he was the accused, and influenced Rai with his propaganda. The second aim was the easiest: the State TV was soon "Berlusconised".
The proof arrived when particular programmes such as Enzo Biagi's "Il Fatto", Michele Santoro's "Sciuscià" and Daniele Luttazzi's "Satyricon" were cancelled the two journalists and the comedian were fired. Biagi was fired for having invited actor and director Roberto Benigni, who poked fun at Berlusconi during Biagi’s programme broadcast before the 2001 elections, Santoro for his investigative programmes which tried to discover where the money of Berlusconi’s holdings came from, and Luttazzi for his programmes who mocked Il Cavaliere.
“My collaborators and I knew that we were risking our jobs when we were doing our programme in which we were showing the Italians which were the dangers of the Berlusconi government,” Santoro said later on. ”Many Italians may not be aware of the fact that we foresaw the things they are now living. Let’s say that the treating Berlusconi is submitting us journalists to is a honour because it means that such a powerful man is scared of a journalist who’s doing is job.”
Years have passed, but nothing has changed in Italy since Santoro pronounced these words: those who dissent, journalists and comedians (remember Sabina Guzzanti's case) included, are still attacked in Italy or simply banned from the TV, while the Prime Minister is free of doing whatever he wants from attacking magistrates (what he said in 2003 to Boris Johnson and Nicholas Farrell interviewing him entered history: “There is no conflict of interests (…) I am the most liberal publisher in history." Adding about Italian magistrates: “They are mad twice over. First, because they are politically that way, and second, because they are mad anyway. To do that job you need to be mentally disturbed, you need psychic disturbances. If they do that job it is because they are anthropologically different! That is why I am in the process of reforming everything.") and escaping the trials in which he is involved thanks to unconstitutional laws.
When he became Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, by keeping his channels, publishing house, financial enterprises, movie distributing companies and football team, achieved the final goal, turning Italy into a media and political empire, his own fictitious Berluland, a country ruled and owned by Sua Emittenza (His Broadcastership).
Italians have had enough of Berlusconi, yet, there will not be any pluralism and real competition on Italian TV, until proper media laws ensure media pluralism in the country, establishing no single person can control more than one channel. Till then Il Cavaliere and his dark forces (and ex-showgirls turned into ministers...) will prevail and will keep on having a central position in Italian life and, until then, Italians will be forced to watch embarrassingly vulgar and mind-numbing TV shows.
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