Berlusconi is the founder and principal shareholder of Fininvest, the second largest Italian corporation (after Fiat), which deals in media and financial business and, most notably, comprises three national TV channels. Together these account for nearly half the Italian TV market. He is also well known for being, since 1986, the president of A.C. Milan, a prominent Italian football team. Under his presidency it has won a number of national and international trophies. According to Forbes magazine, Berlusconi is Italy's richest person, an allegedly self-made man (see section) with personal assets worth $12,000,000,000 (USD) in 2005, making him the world's 25th richest person [1].

His rise in the political arena has been extremely rapid. He was appointed Prime Minister following the March 1994 elections, when Forza Italia gained a relative majority a mere three months after having been officially launched. He formed the first unabashedly right-wing administration in 34 years. However, his cabinet collapsed after seven months, due to internal disagreements in the centre-right coalition. In the 1996 elections, he ran for Prime Minister again but was defeated by centre-left candidate Romano Prodi. From 1996 to 2001 he was the leader of the parliamentary opposition. In the 2001 elections, he was again the centre-right candidate for Prime Minister and won against the centre-left candidate Francesco Rutelli. Berlusconi then formed his second and third governments, which together lasted five years--the longest in the history of the Italian Republic.

Berlusconi was leader of the centre-right coalition in the April 2006 elections, which he lost, his counterpart being again Romano Prodi. On 2 May 2006, Berlusconi submitted his resignation as prime minister. The President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, asked him to remain in office, "for the handling of current affairs" [1]. His resignation took effect on 17 May 2006 when he was formally succeeded by Prodi.

In economics, Berlusconi has endorsed conservative policies, such as lowering taxes and generally placing lesser constraints on enterprise, in an effort to encourage growth. In foreign policy, his views have been strongly pro-American, even at the expense of causing some attrition with other European countries; in particular he supported George W. Bush in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq by sending Italian troops to join the "Coalition of the Willing". In social policy matters the Berlusconi government has implemented a decidedly right-wing program: passing stricter laws concerning immigration, artificial insemination and drug use.

Although many aspects of Berlusconi's life and personality are highly controversial, probably the thing that makes him a somewhat unique case in modern politics is the issue of media ownership and control. According to Berlusconi's adversaries, the Mediaset (Fininvest's media division) TV channels have played a crucial role in his political success by airing open or "covert" propaganda during news or other information-oriented programming. In contrast, his supporters claim that the networks have always maintained a neutral political stance. The issue has become even more divisive since Berlusconi's rise to premiership, with the left accusing him of also abusing his position as premier to control the publicly-owned RAI TV channels. In practice, they maintain, this permits him to control almost all TV sources of information, while the right insists that the RAI channels are, if anything, biased in favor of the centre-left. Since this matter is, by its very nature, hard to settle objectively, the political debate in Italy has become rather alienating, as the contenders often seem to completely lack a shared information source regarded as neutral and reliable. While it must be noted that Berlusconi officially resigned from all functions in his commercial group in 1994 upon entering political office, he is still the largest shareholder, and all the key posts are held by members of his family or close collaborators.

Family background and private life

Berlusconi was raised in an upper middle-class family in Milan. His father Luigi worked at a small bank, Banca Rasini, of which he became general manager in the 1960s before retiring. Silvio was the first of three children, the others being Maria Antonietta Berlusconi (born 1943) and Paolo Berlusconi (born 1949), now both entrepreneurs.

After completing his secondary school education at a Salesian college, he studied law at the Università Statale in Milan, graduating cum laude with a thesis on the legal aspects of advertising in 1961. Berlusconi did not serve the standard one-year stint in the army which was compulsory at the time.

In 1965 he married Carla Dall'Oglio, and they had two children: Maria Elvira, better known as Marina (born 1966) and Piersilvio (b. 1968). Years later, Berlusconi established a durable relationship with the actress Veronica Lario (nom de plume of Miriam Bartolini), with whom he had three children: Barbara (b. 1984), Eleonora (b. 1986) and Luigi (b. 1988). He only divorced from Carla Dall'Oglio in 1985, and married Veronica Lario in 1990. At this time Berlusconi was a well known entrepreneur, and his wedding was a notable social event; one of the best men for the wedding was former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, during whose government was passed a law named after Berlusconi himself.

Business career

Milano 2
Berlusconi's business career began in the building construction business in the 1960s. His first entry into the media world was in 1973 by means of a cable television station, Telemilano, designed to service his Milano 2 residential development.

Villa Casati-Stampa, Cesare Previti, and Vittorio Mangano

In 1974 Berlusconi moved with his family into Villa Casati, in Milan. He was accused of buying this Villa at a dirt-cheap price, by taking advantage of the drama which befell the Casati-Stampa family (the Marquis Camillo Casati-Stampa shot his wife and her lover, then committed suicide). A political ally of Berlusconi, Cesare Previti, acted as trustee for the orphans, and sold the Villa to Berlusconi. Villa Casati-Stampa was renamed by Berlusconi "Villa San Martino". Marcello Dell'Utri, a close friend and coworker of Berlusconi, brought into this Villa the young Mafia boss Vittorio Mangano, from Palermo (Sicily). Officially Mangano was hired by Berlusconi as his stable keeper, but he also took care of the Villa's security and sometimes took Berlusconi's children to school. Berlusconi kept Mangano as an employee despite his criminal record dating back to the 1960s, and never dismissed him even when, during his time as employee in the Villa, he was imprisoned because of convictions, and suspected of arranging the kidnapping of a friend of Berlusconi. Mangano left spontaneously in late 1976, concerned about Berlusconi's reputation, since many newspapers started making a scandal about his relationship to him24. Berlusconi later stated that he was absolutely unaware of who Mangano really was when he hired him.

Fininvest

In 1978 Berlusconi formed his first media group, Fininvest, which in the five years leading up to 1983 earned 113 billion lire (the equivalent of about 260 million euro at 1997 values). The funding sources are still unknown because of the complex system of holding companies that makes them impossible to trace. Among the banks involved in this transfer of funds was the above mentioned Banca Rasini.

Fininvest expanded into a country-wide network of local TV stations which all broadcast the same materials, forming, in effect, a single national station. This was illegal at the time, since Italian law reserved the monopoly of national TV broadcasting to public television. In 1980 Berlusconi founded Italy's first private national network Canale 5, followed shortly thereafter by Italia 1 which was bought from the Rusconi family in 1982, and Rete 4 which was bought from Mondadori in 1984. He was strongly aided in his successful effort to create the first and only Italian commercial TV empire by his links to Bettino Craxi, secretary-general of the Italian Socialist Party and also prime minister of Italy at that time. In 1986, Berlusconi also tried to expand his business into France with his channel La Cinq, but the project failed and he had to leave in 1990. For many years, the three Italian TV channels owned by Berlusconi were not allowed to broadcast news and political commentary, yet they formed the main alternative to the three State-owned channels Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre. Only in the 1990s was the government monopoly on information ended.

In 1995, Berlusconi sold a portion of his media holdings, first to the German media group Kirch (now bankrupt) and then by public offer. In 1999 Berlusconi expanded again in the media business in a partnership with Kirch called the Epsilon MediaGroup.

Current assets

Berlusconi's main group, called Mediaset, comprises three national television channels, which hold approximately half the national viewing audience, and Publitalia, the leading Italian advertising and publicity agency. He also owns Arnoldo Mondadori, the largest Italian publishing house, whose publications include Panorama, one of the most popular news magazine in Italy. He has interests in cinema and home video distribution firms (Medusa and Penta), insurance and banking (Mediolanum) and a variety of other activities. His brother Paolo owns and operates Il Giornale, and his wife owns Il Foglio, both centre-right newspapers; they are widely regarded as openly pro-Berlusconi publications. The latter has such poor sales that some observers have claimed that it is kept alive by Berlusconi solely for that purpose.

Berlusconi also owns the football club AC Milan, which some think has been an important factor in his political success ("Forza Italia" means "Go Italy!") and before the party was founded it was connected to football supporters of the national team. [2]).