Many scholars focusing on the links between media and politics (more specifically, on how the media cover political actors and events) claim that politicians make increasing use of communication models which, crossing the institutional threshold, are part of the gossip and entertainment world. As a result, there is a growing coverage of political and institutional actors in those magazines and TV formats which are dedicated to entertaining their readers/viewers. This phenomenon affects the political class as a whole (van Zoonen, 2005; Riegert, 2007; Mazzoleni, Sfardini, 2009). In this case study the authors aim to emphasize some specific features of the Italian case. This research focuses on a content analysis of the major 4 gossip magazines and 4 entertainment programmes aired on the major Italian TV channels: RaiUno and Canale5. This study shows that, unlike in other Western democracies, the phenomenon we have described applies – almost exclusively – to the main Italian political party: the Prime Minister’s Pdl, while the opposition parties are regularly left out of the “entertainment format”. The main reason for this lies in Silvio Berlusconi himself. According to a coverage logic that mainly applies to monarchs and royal courts, the entertainment programmes and gossip magazines see Berlusconi as an ideal actor to cover. As a result, they regularly focus on him, his family, his youth and the people around him: thus giving Berlusconi a total and absolute primacy in this specific media arena.
