The Conti return to Sanremo. For after Amadeus, Rai is playing it safe and for the next two years it wants one of its leading faces, with the double role of host and artistic director, which it has already had at the Ariston for three editions, from 2015 to 2017. confirmation of the rumors, which have been circulating for days, arrives on Tg1 at 8: «I’m returning to Sanremo after 7 years, I will try to resume the work done and carried forward in a big way since the two editions of Baglioni and in a huge way since the five editions of Amadeus», he smiles excitedly Carlo Conti connected from the living room at home.
And he promises: «Music as always at the centre, current music, which is popular, we hope to do a good job and continue the wonderful tradition of this event which brings everyone together, the whole family in front of the TV». After the record-breaking five-year period in terms of ratings, advertising revenue and impact on the record market achieved by Amadeus, who in the meantime left the company to join Nove, Rai has chosen Conti as a guarantee of success and ability to continue the musical story of these years.
A unanimous decision, underlines Viale Mazzini, shared by the CEO Roberto Sergio, by the general director Giampaolo Rossi in concert with the Prime Time Entertainment director Marcello Ciannamea. «I have to understand if I still have the ear to choose the songs», Conti had held back in recent weeks, when his name ended up at the top of the list for the toto-Sanremo. And now – after having launched artists such as Francesco Gabbani, Ermal Meta, Giovanni Caccamo, Irama among the New proposals – he takes up the challenge of getting back into the game: «I accepted thanks to the great affection of our company, from the CEO to the general manager to the entertainment director, up to the cleaning lady, the cameramen, the technicians, I felt this support for me that made me say: let’s go back”, he underlines. Furthermore, the return to Ariston “is also a nice way to celebrate my first 40 years with Rai: the first contract dates back to June 1985″. The construction work of the 2025 Festival begins now. «There are very specific steps: now» recalls the host of Best Years «there is the most important thing, the regulations, then we will start listening to the songs of the new proposals, then those of the big names and lastly I will try to understand the team with me on stage for the presentation and all the guests and what comes with it.”
As for the possibility that next to him on stage there will be his usual friends, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Giorgio Panariello, he specifies: «I don’t think so, at least not in a permanent presence, I think I’ll go ahead with the idea of alternating something different every evening different, and then we do too many things together, I can hardly stand those two anymore”, he says laughing.
Meanwhile the tom tom has started, “my phone is constantly ringing”, smiles Conti, revealing that the first message yesterday morning was from Fiorello, who had tried to tease him about the festival theme on Viva Rai2! “If we had been on the air,” he wrote, “we would have had a lot of fun.” Good luck also arrives from Amadeus, followed by a phone call of friendship and esteem between the two. Social media goes crazy: Sanremo is firmly at the top of the trends, among memes, archive images, comments for and against and the first hypotheses on co-hosting, from Annalisa to Alessandro Cattelan, which according to some rumors could also lead to a revived Dopofestival . «Carlo Conti is a professional who also paved the way for the great results of Amadeus and we are happy with his return to leading the event», applauds Enzo Mazza, CEO of Fimi, citing the «particularly happy moment» for the music industry Italian: «The artistic director will have before him a wide choice of multi-platinum talents who dominate the charts to bring to the competition», he underlines. But he also warns that «with Rai the only thing left to be finalized is the priority issue of the costs of the Festival for companies which are absolutely unsustainable today». Codacons instead asks Conti to «break with the past» and to «establish a technical commission for the choice of songs, which takes into account the real value of the songs and the artists who perform them and not the number of followers on social media or the views on the web guaranteed by the singers, nor of their temporary fame linked to participation in singing talent shows”.
