Pier Silvio Berlusconi: “I don’t sell Mediaset and I don’t go into politics. Merger with RCS? It doesn’t exist, we would eat them”

COLOGNO MONZESE (MI). «Immediately after my father’s disappearance in the newspapers we read all the hypotheses on Mediaset, of sale or non-sale, of this or that interest. Did he bother me? The answer is yes”. Also because, assures Pier Silvio Berlusconi, managing director of Mfe-MediaforEurope, in the family there has not been even a moment in which the commitment on TV has faltered: “When asked if we talked about a sale, the answer is no” , he assures. Even now that dad Silvio, founder of the Biscione, is gone, the strategy hasn’t changed one iota and Berlusconi is relaunching his project for the creation of a European TV pole which currently unites Italy, Spain (where the ‘integration of Mediaset Espana), and has made its way into ProsiebenSat1, one of the most important German TVs, where the Biscione has almost 30%, a decided block minority, and two recently appointed directors.

Those who imagined the sale of TVs, the disintegration of the empire, were wrong. «In the family we don’t want to give the impression of compactness: there is compactness – says Pier Silvio -. I love my sister Marina enormously, and I love my brothers Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi enormously. Everyone does their job, but compactness is absolute». Which sale, then? With the French of Vivendi, the second largest shareholder with 23% behind Fininvest, «there are very normal relations with a financial and silent partner. Cordial but non-working relationships. Berlusconi confesses that the whirlwind of rumors of interest in the group “disturbed me a little”. For example, those of an interest by Urbano Cairo, patron of the RCS. «I’m a fan of Urban, I’ve had a wonderful relationship with him since I was a kid. Good, nice, capable. But really there is nothing to date. And if there was, what? Mondadori with RCS? Rcs with Mediaset seems to me a somewhat reckless joint. Given the values ​​at stake, in a merger we would eat Rcs. I don’t want to exaggerate but that’s how it is. In any case he called it fantasy-television? I call it fanta-publishing».

There was only one thing that could separate the paths between Pier Silvio and his Mediaset: politics. Probably he was tempted, as a man of communication as he is. But the decision was made and it was to stay with the company. For three reasons. «Guys, politics is a serious profession. Trades are studied and even more so they are learned, it’s not like one does politics from one day to the next». And what happened is not enough to throw himself at the helm of Forza Italia. Secondly, “even if it were never, I don’t think it’s right to leave things half done. Today Mediaset is going through a very important moment, of new projects and developments. I think I should stay at Mediaset and do my job”. And the third reason, «which is the most important of all, even if it never happened, but it isn’t, and should you hear some kind of call, you mustn’t forget why things are done. One enters politics thinking of giving a service to the Italians. But today there is no urgency. For the first time in many years there is a government that has been voted for by the voters, which is doing its best. I think Forza Italia must and can guarantee stability to the government». Having said that: “I have no intention of going into politics,” he articulates. With Giorgia Meloni, however, he confesses, he has a “good relationship, we have known each other for many years: she has my esteem”.

During the presentation of the schedules, in the same Studio 20 in Cologno Monzese where Pier Silvio Berlusconi, after his father’s funeral, had given his famous speech on the restart (“From tomorrow we’ll click and we’ll be a living company again”) he repeatedly remembers his father, from whom it all began. “The lack I feel is enormous – he says -. I was told that the loss of a parent was the worst experience of life and I have to say that as the days and weeks go by the loss grows. But, to be honest, the lack is more sentimental and filial, rather than professional. My father was a great father. I was in the company when he entered politics, I was overwhelmed and had a natural growth within the company. I remember once, at the beginning, that he called me into the kitchen, where our two diaries were side by side, he said to me: do you really make all these appointments? You have become me! ”: So“ the lack of him is total, but he was so great that he was able to give his children the opportunity to go on without him before what happened later ».

As for Mfe, the new international name of the TV group based in Holland but head and heart in Cologno, Pier Silvio Berlusconi relaunches. The presence in Germany, he says, sees us as long-term shareholders of ProsiebenSat1. We are interested in carrying forward the industrial project, how we get there does not matter. We believe in an agglomeration of European broadcasters, and this doesn’t exist without an important country like Germany”. Berlusconi announces the birth of a new company, called Mfe Advertising, “which will have the task, under the guidance of Stefano Sala, of carrying forward and experimenting with everything that unites modern advertising and new technologies on an international level”. One thing is certain Pier Silvio Berlusconi thinks of everything, except that general interest TV is dead. “Television is not old – he says, the problem is that the individual broadcasters alone are too small”.