Crooner, politician, businessman, but also television … Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi died Monday at the age of 86. The French discovered it in the mid-1980s with “La Cinq”.
The former Italian Prime Minister and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi died Monday, June 12 in Milan, at the age of 86. The business tycoon died of leukemia at San Raffaele Hospital, where he was admitted again on Friday after multiple stays. He profoundly marked the political landscape of his country.
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Born in 1936 in Milan, he is in turn a vacuum cleaner salesman, variety show presenter, singer on cruise ships. In the 1980s, he became the owner of a television empire in Italy, and even of the French channel “la Cinq”. It was on this occasion that the French discovered him.
A “Beaujolais television”
“The television we’re starting to think about is not Coca-Cola television, it’s not spaghetti television, it’s going to be Beaujolais television… And champagne on Saturdays!”explains Silvio Berlusconi at a press conference in Paris in November 1985, inspired by the successful launch of Canal+ in 1984. Three months later, at the end of February 1986, “the Five” – cousin of Canale Cinque, Italian flagship of Berlusconi, popular trend and glitter – is launched from the Italian studios of Silvio Berlusconi, with a variety show saturated with rhinestones, dancers in fur and French and international stars.
And among this parade of celebrities, Johnny Hallyday who affirms on the set “after having lived the great adventure of rock’n’roll, I am very happy to participate in the great adventure of ‘la Cinq'”.
Berlusconi, close to power in Italy
Before arriving in France, Silvio Berlusconi established himself in his country as the leader of highly commercial television. In Italy it is called “emittenza”, a pun between “eminence” And “transmitter”. At the time, he was close to the President of the Italian Council, the Socialist Bettino Craxi who whispers his name to François Mitterand in search of a friendly boss to launch a new channel in France. This unnatural alliance blew up Jack Lang as well as the director Bertrand Tavernier who feared the unbridled distribution of successful films, to the detriment of cinema in theaters and creation. “It’s as if we wanted to fuck up everything that has been undertaken by Jack Lang for four years. I think it’s a great success.”denounced the filmmaker.
But the French adventure quickly becomes complicated. Jacques Chirac, who became Prime Minister in March 1986, privatized TF1 and terminated the La Cinq concession.
“La Cinq”: a slew of stars and American series
Silvio Berlusconi, he keeps his carnivorous smile and traces the roadmap of his chain, punctuated with rhinestones and stars. “To make television, you have to have stars who are in the hearts of the public”, will detail the media mogul during an interview. He pulls out his checkbook and poaches the star animators: Patrick Sabatier, Patrick Sebastien…
Beyond the stars and flashy shows – one thinks then of cult cartoons, the newspapers of Jean-Claude Bourret and the sexy dancers of Collaro -, “the Five”, inaugurates in France the multicasts of American series already largely amortized. “Honey Scare Me”, “K2000”without forgetting the two motorcyclists of “Chips”... But the Berlusconi version of the chain faded in 1987, when a new main shareholder arrived, the press boss Robert Hersant with whom the Italian had to cohabit.
But the audience of La Cinq, which peaked at 13% in 1989, was too low to make profitable a channel entirely financed by advertising and which had spent a lot to recruit presenters. It then accumulates deficits and receives fines for broadcasting violent programs or non-compliance with broadcasting quotas. The shareholders divided and Robert Hersant threw in the towel in 1990. Despite the change of shareholders, the losses increased and the compulsory liquidation of the chain, which employed 900 people, was pronounced in 1992 in view of a declared liability which approaches four billion francs (or 60 million euros).
It ceased broadcasting on April 12, 1992: that day, it was the journalist, Jean-Claude Bourret, who pronounced the final countdown live, in the middle of the staff. The retransmission cuts off and is replaced by this inscription: “La Cinq begs you to excuse him for this definitive interruption of the image and sound”. A cult moment of French television, during which Silvio Berlusconi is not present.