Carlo Conti had also let it be understood that it would be a record-breaking Sanremo, responding to the controversies (which he defined as "populist", one of the trend topics of the moment) regarding his compensation, of 650 thousand euros, which is not the highest in the history of the kermesse but we are close (Panariello, Hunziker, Bonolis and Morandi surpass him). The Tuscan conductor, who is leading the Festival for the third consecutive edition, is about to go down in the news as the most profitable conductor ever, in terms of cost per audience point.
However, the merit will not be all his: the positive balance of this edition starts from afar, from the spending review begun in 2010, which cut costs by 25%. And then advertising revenues took off, which once, even if added to the tickets sold, were not enough to cover the costs: seven years ago they were 12 million, now 23, almost double, and so Rai will pocket 7,5 million in less than a week (1,5 million profits for each evening).
So how to justify the generous compensation of Carlo Conti, who is joined for the first time by Maria De Filippi, making her debut last night on the Ariston stage as co-host, a role she assumed for free, thus contributing to the reduction of costs of the most prestigious program ever produced by Italian television. The one who can complain about cost cutting is the city of Sanremo: the Ligurian municipality, which has hosted the singing festival since 1951, received up to 2010 from Viale Mazzini over 9 million euros for the use of the trademark owned by the municipality. Today the rent has collapsed to 5,25 million, and if you think about it, it is above all thanks to this that Sanremo will be able to break the profit record.
As far as the audience is concerned, here too we are on the verge of a record: in the viewfinder is the 57% share of the 2012 edition conducted by Gianni Morandi. Carlo Conti has raised the ratings in the last two years, after the flop of 2014 (43% with Fabio Fazio at the helm): it starts again from 54% in 2015, one of the best results since 2007.
