(ANSA) - Rome, June 27 - RAI State broadcaster's whopping and
controversial pay rise for presenter Fabio Fazio should be
reviewed by new Director-General Mario Orfeo, board member Carlo
Freccero said Tuesday, while RAI President Monica Maggioni said
she didn't think the broadcaster would have survived Fazio's
threatened departure to a smaller rival, La7.
The secretary of the the parliamentary RAI oversight
commission, Michele Anzaldi of the ruling centre-left Democratic
Party (PD), meanwhile said the board should be sacked after
board member Arturo Diaconale said the directors had been forced
to sign to stop Fazio moving to rival broadcaster La7.
"I ask you MPs to intercede with the DG so that this contract
can be called into question," Freccero told the watchdog panel.
The leftwing board member said he was afraid that Fazio's
audience would be "destroyed" by the controversy.
The centre-right board member, Diaconale, said "we were
forced to sign the Fazio contract, we were told if we didn't he
would sign with a rival broadcaster (La7).
"We weren't forced with a gun to the head but by the civil
code. If we hadn't signed it we could have been liable for
damages to the company".
Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party and
Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) said
Diaconale's revelation made Fazio's salary hike all the more
"unacceptable".
Anzaldi said Diaconale's revelation was "extremely serious"
and that the board should be "scrapped".
Maggioni, for her part, told the watchdog that Fazio's
departure would have dealt such a shock to the RAI system that
it might have collapsed.
"Fabio Fazio is part of RAI's history. To see that brand,
that face, that format move to another broadcaster would have
brought a shock that I don't know RAI would have withstood, at a
systemic level," she said.
Criticism from across the political spectrum has been raging
in Italy over a sky-high salary granted by RAI for popular
television host Fazio, one of the stars of left-leaning channel
Raitre, who is now set to move to the flagship Raiuno channel.
The RAI board said earlier this month that chatshow stars
like Bruno Vespa and Fazio would not be covered by a new
240,000-euro wage ceiling, but that their pay would be cut by
10%.
However, as Democratic Party (PD) MP and member of the RAI
watchdog authority Michele Anzaldi said in a Facebook post
Monday, "in order to justify the super-raise for Fazio, of 50%
more and thus to almost 12 million euros as well as a contract
for his production company worth another 11 million euros, RAI
board members said that the company could not deprive itself of
such an important resource."
"Company sources," he added, said that "on June 25 - and not
denied by RAI - that Fazio had already signed a contract with
La7, and thus that the huge raise was to ward off a loss to
their competitor. Today, however, La7 said that no official
offer had even been made."
And thus, they "did not only not comply with a law on a
240-000-euro limit, voted on by parliament, they even went
against their own directive approved a week ago that announced a
reduction of at least 10%."
The head of FI in the Lower House, Renato Brunetta, added
that "what was decided on Friday by the RAI board on the
super-high salary for Fabio Fazio is unacceptable, against the
law and morally indefensible amid an enduring economic crisis
that all citizens - who pay State broadcaster fees - have to
struggle against on a daily basis."
The chair of the parliamentary RAI watchdog, Roberto Fico of
the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), highlighted what
he called the double standard of a "Communist" like Fazio
trading himself to the highest bidder in the media market place.
Thr row was even said to have contributed to the centre
left's unexpectedly poor showing in Sunday's mayoral run-offs in
many Italian cities and towns.
Fazio contract shd be reviewed (5)
Board shd be sacked says Anzaldi