«Fabio, when you finally come to us, I too feel I have the intuition that you can become “everyday”, the intuition that my dad had with Maurizio. So, if you want, we are here.” On one side Pier Silvio Berlusconi, on the other Fabio Fazio. The setting is that of the Parioli Theater where the memory of Maurizio Costanzo hosted on Canale 5 by Fazio with Maria De Filippi is staged. The host and the CEO of Mediaset smile, one joke leads to another: «Eh, I’ve just started on the Nine. But, Pier Silvio, if that’s the case, we’ll talk about it in a few years.” Fantasy television or reality? At the moment the first. Pier Silvio Berlusconi certainly appreciates and esteems Fabio Fazio; the presenter certainly appreciated the flattery, but seeing him on Mediaset is a long time coming.
As he himself recalled, a few months ago he left (or rather, was made to leave) Rai to join the channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Important contract, duration of four years, of which the first has not yet been completed. At the moment therefore the hypothesis seems impossible. Fazio, among other things, has already announced that after this experience he will retire. Maybe he’ll change his mind, but in any case another good three years will have to pass. On Nove Che tempo che fa is achieving results equal to those he had in Rai and the figure is sensational, now consolidated, not only linked to the novelty of the debut. The program has remained the same and has the same appeal, it continues to intercept all those guests – including international ones – who are otherwise rarely seen on Italian TV (see Martin Scorsese in the last episode).
The Fabio Fazio Show on Canale 5 therefore does not seem viable, even if Pier Silvio Berlusconi’s “intuition” is certainly correct. The host knows how to mix sophisticated and popular, because in his living room personalities from the world of culture, entertainment and economics intervene for face-to-face interviews, but then there is time for the author’s “fooling” at the Table, a «format» which resembles what happened in the living room of the Costanzo Show. Costanzo, before Fazio, brought on stage and told with irony and depth the high and the low, what he himself liked to define as “mixed fried”. His television style has become a model: the ability to bring together apparently different themes and genres, capable of creating a context that is never predictable. If Fazio is a dream at the moment, Maria De Filippi is a certainty: «He invented a new way of making television and we are proud to always have her on Canale 5. Always”. Pier Silvio Berlusconi’s words, with that double “always”, seal, once again, a television marriage that has been going on for over 30 years.