Are we about to see Silvio Berlusconi – billionaire, Italian Prime Minister and one-time cruiseship crooner – singing his love songs on ITV to a back-drop of housewives doing striptease?

Not quite: the stripping housewives on Italian television are a tenacious myth and Mr Berlusconi’s compositions are available only on CD (out this Christmas). But a Mediaset bid may not be so fanciful: this week Gina Nieri, director of Mediaset, let slip that although there are no negotiations at present, BSkyB’s stake in ITV is among the acquisitions that Mr Berlusconi’s empire is considering.

Fedele Confalonieri, president of Mediaset, observed delphically that the company was considering “a whole sackload of things” – but did not rule out a bid for ITV. “Like all European broadcasters, we are watching closely,” a Mediaset spokesman said. Even if Mediaset did not move directly, it controls a third of Endemol, the Big Brother producer, which has also indicated interest.

A stake in ITV would give Mr Berlusconi a foothold in the English-speaking media world for the first time and perhaps backdoor influence in British media. Yet, Mr Berlusconi says that he does not run Mediaset himself: repeatedly charged with a conflict of interest between his political role and his media power, he replies that the “day-to-day” management of Mediaset is in the hands of Mr Confalonieri, one of his oldest associates, and the two children of his first marriage: Pier Silvio and Marina, who chairs Fininvest, the family’s holding company, and Mondadori, its publishing arm.

Mediaset is the dominant force in Italian television, with more than 6,000 employees. Its share of viewing was 40.6 per cent last year, 5.5 points ahead of RAI, the state broadcaster. Its turnover was €4.08 billion (£3.24 billion) last year, with net profit of €506 million.

Like RAI, Mediaset boasts high-quality political chat shows and documentaries. However, critics attack the core diet of soap operas, game shows, reality shows and near-naked dancing girls. Paolo Martini, the TV critic of La Stampa, says that Mediaset forced RAI to go down market to compete. Both RAI and Mediaset, he says, are guilty of hypocrisy: RAI upholds public service values but broadcasts the Miss Italy pageant, which last year featured a debate on the contestants’ bottoms.

Italia 1 airs American programmes such as Californication after midnight but features titillating showgirls and gruesome crimes on its early evening news show, Studio Aperto (Open Studio).

Mediaset is Mr Berlusconi’s personal fiefdom, the jewel in his business empire. He created it as a private television network in Milan in the 1980s and built it up to break the monopoly of RAI. His stake is 40.1 per cent, with Fininvest holding 36.3 per cent. Quoted since 1996, it includes not only Italy’s three free-to-air commercial channels – Italia 1, Rete-quattro and Canale 5 – but also an advertising group (Publitalia), a film company (Medusa), digital, satellite and pay TV channels, and 50.1 per cent of a Spanish TV station, Telecinco. Mr Berlusconi also owns AC Milan football club, and the newspaper Il Giornale.

Opponents say that Mr Berlusconi uses his media domination to win and keep power and employs business practices that have landed him in the dock on corruption charges – although he says that he has been persecuted by left-wing magistrates.

Mediaset’s digital strategy is developing and the company is only gradually facing digital competition. The principal challenger is Sky Italia, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, which has 4.5 million subscribers. Mediaset has introduced some pay-services, principally football as a top-up, and some smaller digital channels.

Corriere della Sera, the newspaper, recently suggested that in the long run Mediaset will move beyond its formula of “popular entertainment-orientated television”, and with competitive pressures mounting, expanding overseas makes sense. Expect to hear more.

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