Fabio Fazio leaves Rai for Discovery: The new chapter in the career of Italian television’s most influential face

It is not easy to close a long chapter of one’s life: Fabio Fazio he leaves Rai, the new home will be Discovery to which he will be linked with a four-year agreement. The future is on the Nine; with him Luciana Littizzetto and the working group. The conductor waited, in Viale Mazzini they didn’t renew his contract, but his voice doesn’t betray emotion: “That’s how it went”. No comments, just thanks for the company where he grew up. “We are thrilled to welcome a champion like Fabio Fazio – he comments Alessandro Araimo, GM Italy & Iberia of Warner Bros. Discovery – and proud that one of the most important and influential faces of Italian television has chosen Warner Bros. Discovery and Canale Nove to continue his extraordinary career. Our commitment has always been to attract the best talents and the arrival of Fabio and Luciana in our group is the best possible confirmation.

A long farewell announced by Rai, with the new government that is changing everything in Viale Mazzini, and which had put it in its sights. Even if someone hypothesizes that behind the lack of agreement there may be the hand of Matthew Salviniwho has never hidden his dislike for Fazio.

In 2020 the conductor had vented: “I suffered 123 attacks from him”. In rallies, the then Minister of the Interior never missed an opportunity to bring it up. However it went, that contract, ready, was not signed by the now ex CEO of Rai Carlo Fuortes. “The attitude of politics towards me was not irrelevant” he explained in an interview with Repubblica three years ago, on the occasion of his return to Rai 3, “but I am lucky enough to have a job that caters to the public, counts the esteem of people. It is Rai’s thirty-eighth year, substance and maturity count”.

Born in Savona, class of 1964, Fazio starts with imitations. He loves television, he is curious, very determined, with ambition and constant commitment. With him, his working group innovates. “I came from Savona, Rome was unreachable from a cultural point of view” he said. “It was like going abroad. I put a lot of effort into it but I was very lucky to have those meetings. Salce gave me wonderful car rides to the airport, I didn’t have the money. Never understood why Rai didn’t reimburse taxis. The TV was a blank sheet in the children’s drawing hour, you had all the colors and you invented”.

The fundamental meetings on Rai 3: Professor Rossini, then the arrival of Angelo Guglielmi which revitalizes the Third network, where Fazio had arrived thanks to Mario Colangeli. Bruno Voglinoa great talent scout, is his mentor, one of the fathers of variety with Guido Priest e Antonello Falqui. “I tell stories as if I were a Martian when I was on the radio a Black out (1982) with Priest, Luciano Salce, Henry Vaime, Simon Marchini. Thanks to them I did a master’s degree in taste and language”.

He had explained his love for television and public service well in that long chat in the summer of 2020: “No, I never say ‘Rai’. For me it’s not a company, Rai is part of my genetics. I remember the first time I saw Gianni Boncompagni in Via Teulada, heart beating when I met Renzo Arbore. I was working with Loretta Goggi and the Carrà and my friends would ask me to bring autographs. A wonderful story; to have experienced it as a professional, and to a very large extent as a public, is a privilege”.

Then the relationship cracks: the controversy over compensation, politics. “Rai is the sum of the executives you work with, the artists. If you play a little game nothing happens, if you are a target of the Minister of the Interior the role becomes another. Luckily I remember the people who taught me so much: Dulbecco, Pavarotti, Morricone, Camilleri. I will never forget lunch in San Remo with Juliet Churchthe former manager of Rai Mario Maffucci, Gorbachev and Mrs. Raissa”.

Year after year, since Those who football a My soulal San Remo Festivalin collaboration with Roberto Savianoat the evening event for the Day of Remembrance with the senator Liliana Segre, Fazio brings his idea of ​​television. Then What’s the weather like, which the new management would have liked to overturn: just entertainment, no more political guests, no more discussion on current events. It’s impossible to take a step back, “at almost 59 years of age I’ve traveled my path” he said some time ago. Proud of the meetings, the one at the Elysée with the president Macronand then the interview with Pope francesco.

Difficult to do just for show, for those who, in the space dedicated to journalists, a What’s the weather like, his Sunday talk on Rai 3 with ever-increasing ratings, discussed what is happening in Italy. Immigration, war, political choices. In January, on the eve of the preparation of Track 21he had told how satisfied he was with his work on television, the new energies also spent as an entrepreneur, for the Lavoratti chocolate factory in Varazze, which he had taken over with Davide Petrini.

He had lined up the programs that marked his career and his growth: “Those who football it was the turning point of my life. The first Sanremo Festival, in 1999, as prescribed, is an unrepeatable emotion. Then the evening dedicated to Falcone and Borsellino, as well as the one to celebrate April 25th ». But in Viale Mazzini they also made war on her. “Evidently it was unthinkable that I was on Rai 1. The general manager had changed, obedience prevailed. Past water, it’s part of life. Now I’m back to basics, I’m fine”. In October he would have celebrated Rai’s 40th birthday. The collaboration ends abruptly. A new chapter opens, on the Nine, where he will bring the whole group of him, from Luciana Littizzetto down. A new beginning.