The corridors of the Rai building in Viale Mazzini are simple: they all have a square plan and it is really difficult to get lost. Yesterday, after a long day of bitter tensions in the Board of Directors, someone has lost something. The first to get lost seems to have been the General Manager, Antonio Campo Dall'Orto, and some of his staff. The something, on the other hand, concerns the real object of the councilors' fears.
We try to rebuild. At 15.30 the first Ansa comes out where we read that councilor Paolo Messa, the youngest and from the centrist area, leaves the work of the Council and declares that "the relationship of trust with the DG has ceased". The subject of the disagreement was the report of the Board of Statutory Auditors on ANAC surveys by Raffaele Cantone, where, it seems, concrete risks have emerged of appeals to the Court of Auditors for possible illegitimacy in the recruitment procedures of 21 mega-executives. The antiphon is clear to all and, for Mass, even more so. If things were to go wrong, the councilors would be called to answer on their own for tax damage and, although there could be an insurance parachute, the matter is not at all simple. While most of the other councilors are either already retired or with fairly limited further career prospects, for the young councilor Messa such a hiccup could be difficult to manage.
After all, the ANAC situation on Rai is very simple and one of two things: either Cantone's findings make sense and it is therefore necessary to give a tangible and significant follow-up, or otherwise his observations can be considered like smoke in the wind and therefore anyone he is entitled to ignore them. This second hypothesis, with the current atmosphere, seems very difficult to bear. At stake on this issue is not only the Court of Auditors, but the questioning of the Company's vital nerve centres. For example, the Security, where after the resignation of the manager Genseric Cantournet, in first place among the contested assumptions, a not insignificant flaw has opened considering the dangers that are run on this terrain. In Viale Mazzini someone also recalls that the same company of headhunters that proposed his name has also proposed others of no less importance, such as the human resources manager Piero Galletti.
And then, again yesterday, news circulated that didn't get much attention but it's not insignificant. The Rai CFO, Raffaele Agrusti, last Friday he would have presented his resignation for having accepted the proposal for appointment as General Manager of InAss. We tried to find out more but the only answer we got was: "she didn't deny it". Now, it so happens that the CFO Rai is also the Chairman of Rai Way, listed company that just recently renewed its top management.
And so, given the report on the ANAC findings - classified - in first place, everything else appears in a different light. It is no coincidence that, on this subject, throughout yesterday afternoon, no one picked up the signal that started with the first cannon shot fired from Messa. And it is at this point that the hidden plan is triggered: to bring out the disagreement with the DG on an issue that is more easily "newsworthy" and to hope that on this front he will be able to obtain his resignation. The meeting then continued the work with the other item on the agenda: the project on information and on this there was a good game, on the part of everyone, to unleash the uproar.
Ready immediately afterwards, however, to negotiate a truce: both Carlo Freccero and Arturo Diaconale, argued that if the DG is willing to adjust the project, we can talk about it and move forward. And since the point, it seems, is precisely this. It is well known that a sort of agreement on the electoral law is at stake in Parliament which could allow for early elections and, therefore, we reason, Who could it be convenient for to open the bedlam of new appointments in Viale Mazzini just before new elections? And besides, who would take on such a responsibility for such a short time? It is worth remembering that, always yesterday, the BoD approved the schedules for the next quarter only, postponing the most interesting advertising "loot", the autumn programming, to a forthcoming meeting.
On the topic of Rai news the debate has been going on for at least two years and the first ideas are one of the legacy of previous DG Luigi Gubitosi. Meanwhile, on this issue, he recently resigned Carlo Verdelli, in charge of carrying out the complex operation. But, again in the meantime, "politics" entered the subject with an outstretched leg: the rubble of the referendum result is still smoldering and the controversies about compensation are still stinging, as well as about Reporting services which, coincidentally, have given particular nuisance to one of the governing parties.
Campo Dall'Orto will have to have a confrontation with its majority shareholder, and, as he claimed "he was the one who nominated me and he will be the one to distrust me". As FIRSTonline wrote yesterday, formally, nothing relevant happened and, given the behavior of the Government representative on the CDA, Marco Fortis, who abstained on the rejection of the editorial plan, it is difficult to imagine a catastrophic scenario. At least for now, except for twists and turns.
