Silvio Berlusconi and television: a pre-political revolution

Abstract

In the contemporary collective imagination the name of Silvio Berlusconi is undoubtedly linked to his political career, between scandals and controversies, successes and defeats, the Cavaliere began in 1994, continuing, even today, to attract the consensus of millions of Italians. His creation of the movement Forza Italia not only renewed the Italian political outlook but created a new language and a new way of communicating, establishing a modern socio-cultural model. There was talk of a real revolution in politics that Silvio Berlusconi personified and, from there, all Italian politicians of all parties, could not ignore it. However, about fifteen years earlier, around 1980, Silvio Berlusconi was the protagonist of another revolution: as an entrepreneur in the world of television, still far from the "political arena" with the creation of the new commercial televisions, the Cavaliere changed completely the physiognomy of the Italian television until then characterized by the total domain of RAI, the state television. In order to counteract RAI’s three channels, Silvio Berlusconi, through the Finivest group - now Mediaset – created three channels which imposed a number of innovations, in terms of programming and in terms of language and communication, ushering, a new television and cultural model that soon after, RAI had to adapt, abdicating its pedagogical and exclusively service function. This article therefore focuses on this Silvio Berlusconi pre- political "revolution", considered a pioneer of another political revolution that will completely change the Italian political scene.