Amadeus, early stop hypothesis with Warner Bros Discovery (and return to Rai)
According to rumours, the contract signed in 2024 is being closed two years early. Lower-than-expected ratings
Key points
The return to Rai lasted only a few minutes. The time of a gag with Fiorello at La Pennicanza on Radio2, a few jokes about the past and a song rewritten as a joke. But behind the siparietto that brought Amadeus back into the corridors of the public service there is a much more concrete game to be played: that of his professional future.
Consensual separation
According to rumours that have also taken shape following Fiorello's participation in the programme, the presenter and Warner Bros Discovery are working on a mutually agreed separation that would lead to the early termination of the four-year contract signed in the spring of 2024. An agreement that, in the initial intentions, should have represented one of the pillars of the growth of Nine, Warner Bros Discovery's flagship network, on the generalist entertainment front.
According to reconstructions, the topic has been on the table for weeks. On the one hand there is a major investment made by the group led in Italia by Alessandro Araimo to secure one of the most popular faces on Italian television. On the other there is the realisation that the move from RAI has not generated the disruptive effect on the ratings that many imagined.
Rai: 'Huge walls and the will to overcome them'
Amadeus' participation in Fiorello's programme came in this context. "Sanremo is never refused. We have lived five years with great joy and fun,' said the presenter, before lending himself to his friend's game and singing a revised version of Non amarmi: 'Even though Rai has huge walls, I am not afraid and I want to overcome them.
Underperformance
Beyond the lightness of the moment, the industrial fact remains. The experience on Nine has just ended with the last episode of The Cage, aired on 29 May. It was the last scheduled appointment of the season and comes as Warner Bros Discovery, which has not commented on the rumours, is defining - globally - its new strategies also in the face of the acquisition by Paramount Skydance. And the fine-tuning of the new 2026-2027 schedules is also being finalised, with several plans under consideration.
