Few things make as little sense as shutting down talk shows just before an election. As Massimo Gramellini wrote, it is a bit like shutting down Match of the Day or La Domenica Sportiva just before the World Cup. Italians are submerged with politicians’ opinions 11 months a year (TV in August is luckily dominated by B-movies as Parliament is shut and the protagonists of politics are mostly at the seaside) and the one time when their opinion would really be of some use, it is denied because of a political decision taken from Parliament.

The Parliamentary Committee which oversees the Italian Public TV, Rai, has imposed a stringent version of the par condicio law to talk shows. This was then transformed by the board of Rai into a complete ban on talk shows, regardless of whether they talk about politics. The Authority overseeing Communications tried to extend it to private TVs, but a judgement by an administrative tribunal has reverted this ruling. The Parliamentary committee and the RAI board, however, refused to lift the ban for the Italian public service broadcasting, with the result that talk shows are now transmitted on private TVs but not on RAI.

The political nature of the reason behind this decision is rather uncontroversially accepted. The 5-4 split on the RAI board, where the members are of political nomination and tend to vote according to party lines, clearly reflect a willingness by the centre-right majority more than a bipartisan consensus.

The technical reason for this shut-down, as we said, is a strict application of the par condicio law. However, it is now becoming apparent that the real reason has to be searched in Berlusconi’s dislike of left-leaning talk shows, particularly Michele Santoro’s Annozero. This was initially a rumor circulating only among the well-informed. It was then indirectly confirmed by Bruno Vespa, a journalist whose talk show, Porta a Porta, was also shut as a result of the ban and who pointed the finger at Santoro, saying that he had responsibility for all of this. This rumor was then confirmed by some phone tapping released in the last few days. They showed Berlusconi first putting pressure on the Authority to stop Santoro’s program and then to shut all RAI talk shows.

The first consideration from this episode obviously concerns the health of the Italian democracy. The Director General of RAI, Mauro Masi, appointed under the Berlusconi government, was tapped saying in a phone call that such pressures would not even occur in Zimbabwe. The second one concerns the health of the Italian media. There was initially a protest by the talk shows’ hosts, but, as Aldo Grasso has commented on Corriere della Sera, one would have expected more. The protest was weak, Grasso noted, partly because of the divisions among Italian journalists.

The third consideration has to do with a very interesting development taking place on the web. In the last few days, Corriere has started a talk show on its website, which is hosted by Enrico Mentana, a popular TV journalist. Aldo Grasso, himself from Corriere, hailed this as a historical event, as it shows how the web can become a good substitute for TV. Repubblica.it lagged behind on this, but is now hosting similar political debates led by Giovanni Floris.

Some suggest that these shows are very boring and have little to do with the vivacity of their TV counterparts. Others, conversely, see them as the proof that is almost impossible to censor programs in the web era. Taking this one step further, perhaps, by shutting down TVs, the centre-right ends up increasing the potential of the web, a media Berlusconi is reported to have often seen with suspiciousness.

However, this analysis may confuse long-term and short-term. A month is not enough to change the habits of Italians, who will not migrate to a PC screen because Enrico Mentana is interviewing politicians there. The overall result may, quite simply, be a growing disinterest in politics and growing abstention. Unsurprisingly, Berlusconi, an animal of great political instinct, is now campaigning precisely against that.