Sanremo, Carlo Conti artistic director and presenter for two years

For Sanremo 2025, RAI is betting on safe second-hand material: for the next two years, Carlo Conti will be the artistic director and presenter of the Italian Song Festival, as had already been rumoured for a few months in Viale Mazzini and discography circles.

The announcement arrived with the 8 o'clock Tg1, following a formula - that of the Sanremo announcements entrusted to the Rai's flagship TV news programme - inaugurated by the last two editions of Amadeus. "The tam tam has already started, my mobile phone is ringing. I'm very pleased: the accounts add up," jokes an excited Carlo Conti commenting live on the news. "I am returning to Sanremo after seven years, I will try to take up the work done and carried out to great effect by Baglioni's two editions and to great effect by Amadeus's five. Music as always at the centre, the current one, which people like, we hope to do a good job and continue the wonderful tradition of this event that brings everyone together, the whole family in front of the TV,' Conti stressed, revealing that the first person to write to him was Fiorello: 'If we had been on the air, he wrote, we would have had a great time.

The presenter says he accepted 'thanks to the great affection of our company, from the CEO to the general manager to the entertainment director, right down to the cleaning lady, the cameramen, the technicians, I felt this cheer for me that made me say: let's come back,' Conti adds. "For the next two years I will be the artistic director, moreover it is also a nice way to celebrate my first 40 years with Rai, the first contract dates back to June 1985".

The choice would be the result of a unanimous decision by the top management, CEO Roberto Sergio and General Manager Giampaolo Rossi in agreement with Prime Time Entertainment Director Marcello Ciannamea. For the next two years, underlines a Rai note, 'Conti will be at the helm of the most important national multimedia event organised by Rai and the Municipality of Sanremo'.

Carlo Conti has already led the Italian Song Festival for three editions, from 2015 to 2017, the last of which he co-hosted with Maria De Filippi. His was a parenthesis between the second two-year period of Fabio Fazio and that of Claudio Baglioni, before Amadeus' five record-breaking Sanremo - in terms of ratings and, above all, advertising sales. In the country's government at the time was Matteo Renzi, a Florentine like Conti himself, but at the RAI at the time of Giorgia Meloni's premiership, the Tuscan presenter, who more than anyone else declared that he was inspired by Pippo Baudo's 'medietas', evidently appeared to be the only one on the market who offered guarantees. The memory left by him at the Ariston was good: his three editions - won by Il Volo, Stadio and Francesco Gabbani respectively - made 48.64%, 49.58% and 50.42% as average share of all the episodes. Fazio's last year, before Conte, had closed at 39.32%, while Baglioni's first rose to 52.16%.