FOCUS ON ROOKIES, MANAGEMENT AND RADIO BROADCASTING AT SANREMO FESTIVAL 2021

by Illy Masper

SAN REMO. In the climate of uncertainty created by the coronavirus emergency, number 71 Sanremo Song Festival’s dates are still to be verified but meantime, meetings are taking place weekly in the RAI Saxa Rubra’s offices in Rome. These workplaces, which in English are called headquarters, literally are rooms where ideas are born, and important decisions are made. And it is precisely in these rooms that the always proactive presenter and art director Amadeus launched the hypothesis of producing some changes not only in the Big Sector’s Regulations, but also and above all in the Rookies’ Category-Sanremo Giovani.

Speaking of the latter, years of discussion and proposing from the “heads” did not generate the winning solution. Never. The fact that Amadeus has noticed that something is wrong is a positive one, and that he has decided to tackle and focus on this key area is even better. At the same time, it is entirely another matter that the old management let him carry on his requests. Because one thing is certain: rookies in Sanremo have always been a bargaining chip between small and large record companies, between various managers and Rai. Unfortunately, these guys must accept what others decide and stay good, worth staying home, be they valid or not. This is an unwritten rule. We can say that because we repeatedly faced the problem and proposed solutions. Battles lost that we have carried out in the past 30 years, however, hoping to somehow influence the decisions of those who we do not hesitate to define “the solons”, those managers, those “heads” that in very discreet meetings not to say at night were confirming the exchanges: “If you give a Big to me, I give you two Rookies in change…” so as to make everyone happy; or better almost everyone, because if the change does not happen, the verbal queries and the agency launches begin until the bitter conclusion is that the one who shouts the most wins. If this happens for the Rookies’ sector, let alone the Big one! Then there is the participation of the various “heads” that are mushrooming in droves close to the Song Festival in the city of flowers.

Here it is necessary to open a parenthesis about the continuous big problems of a management that is too often left in very unprofessional hands. As the saying goes “One hundred heads, one hundred ideas” … which are decidedly too many since it is not a question of deliberating the agenda of a condo! Even if the bite looks delicious, the Municipality must understand that she cannot interfere in a complex thing far from its skills as the record industry. Above the Municipality of Sanremo, a government cultural institution like  RAI must act more decisively. Meanwhile, RAI slips her paw anyway, and with decision, in the “headquarters” of the Italian discography. So, it would be better if she decides to keep amateurs at bay, to bring together the industry and the musical culture in a less dispersive and more profitable way.

Another interesting sector concerns the live broadcasts made by Radio Sanremo, the radio of the City of Music followed in the world in more than 80 countries with over 400 million minutes of listening per month.

We think that a campaign should be launched to promote the Sanremo Festival’s innovative Italian music increasing (why not?)  the broadcasts of the colleague the famous Radio Montecarlo, (RMC Network owned by the Mediaset Group since  September 2018).

She was born on March 6, 1966 initially as a part of the programming of Radio Monte Carlo in Italian and thanks to the direction of Noel Coutisson she later become an independent broadcaster. Radio Monte Carlo Info (RMC) broadcasts in French from Paris studios on France and from Monaco. In fact, RMC broadcasting can be followed in much of northern Italy and the Tyrrhenian coast on the long wave of 216 kHz also because some RMC studios are working and producing in Italy.