He opens the door for her, she doesn’t even notice. He talks to her about fishing, “even if it is practiced with poor results”, she raps to him 1992 by Jovanotti“because it brings to mind the most beautiful summer of my life.” He then responds with I love you by Umberto Tozzi: «That was my best summer. It was 1977, I immediately managed to learn the lyrics of the song by heart and it reminds me of one of my first loves, complete with a rebound.”
This, in summer, Carlo Conti and Andrea Delogu they will remember it for other reasons. The first, for both, is called TIM Summer Hits. Eighty singers or just over (from Elodie to Tananai, from Annalisa to Geolier, from Angelina Mango to Tony Effe and Gaia) and the seasonal hits in four eveningswhich will be broadcast, for the first time on Rai 1 after the first two years on Rai 2, on June 28th, July 7th, 12th and 19thas well as an episode best of on 7/26.
We meet the two hosts while they are recording the program in Piazza del Popolo in Romebetween couple sketches and amarcord moments.
«Andrea is the hostess», Conti is keen to point out. In fact Delogu has been here since the number one edition of 2022. «Carlo, everyone wanted you. And I was very happy when I learned that you had accepted.” It is said that Ferdinando Salzano, the founder of Friends&Partners, contacted the host as the quarter-finals of the 2023/24 Conference League were about to begin: Fiorentina against Viktoria Plzeň. And that the outcome of the match, with the victory of the first obviously, was decisive in Conti’s response. “That’s exactly how it happened,” he confirms. «Overwhelmed by enthusiasm, I said yes. Jokes aside, I’ve been doing it for years TIM Music Awards at the Verona Arena: i TIM Summer Hits can be considered the prologue. And then, probably, with the move to the network, a slightly older Rai 1 face was needed.”
Carlo Conti is also sixty-three years old, of which almost forty in Rai the summer before his return to Sanremo, after the official investiture in May. However, she assures, it will not be different from the previous ones: «The sea, the sun, the tan, the son, the wife, the friends and the fishing (precisely, ed.)”. “In the last few days, videos of tuna have appeared on TikTok and I’ve started following a woman who catches giant tuna alone”, plays along Andrea Delogu, born in 1982, on Rai since 2013. “And now you see, I’m learning too” .
Do you remember the emotion of your first time on Rai?
Andrea Delogu: “Yes. I went to talk to Marco Giusti to see if there was the possibility of leading Stracult. Thank goodness there was.”
Carlo Conti: «I have to go a little further back in time. June 1985, after a series of auditions, this curly-haired deejay was catapulted from the Florentine radio stations to the studios in via Teulada in Hit Paradea musical program by one of the great directors of the time, Luigi “Gigi” Bonori, who in the summer period replaced the famous Discoring. I felt like a fish out of water, part of something bigger than me.”
How long did that feeling last?
CC: “Many years. So much so that for a long time I carried out both local radio and TV and Rai in parallel. I have always believed that an athlete, before arriving at the Olympics, must train for a long time in the field near his home. That’s how it was for me, also to diversify. It’s the reason why I then embraced the excitement of the comedians of Tuscany, who taught me to act as a support, to organize a program, to respect deadlines… It was an important apprenticeship. After all, you’re not born to fly right away.”
A Polaroid before flying?
CC: «An evening in a little theater in Massa Marittima, in the province of Grosseto. With Leonardo Pieraccioni and Giorgio Panariello we performed in front of seven people. Seven counted. With whom we eventually even became friends. Do you know why this image and not others? It’s much more difficult to get the attention of a handful of viewers and engage them.”
TO: «The nights when I was a vocalist in the disco. They were invaluable: I learned to be there without invading the pitch, to take a step back without losing the rhythm. I also have funnier Polaroids, eh.”
Please.
TO: “I was on tour in the Philippines.”
As a singer?
TO: “Certain. Think how crazy! I’m talking to you about fifteen years ago. There, for a week, I was as famous as Madonna, they stopped me on the street. I’m proud of it.”
When did your paths meet?
TO: «Sporadically in the corridors of Radio Rai. Then Carlo called me to be part of the jury of Sanremo Giovani 2016. It’s as if they asked me: “Do you want to win the Superenalotto?”. It was the edition that highlighted the careers of Mahmood, Francesco Gabbani, Ermal Meta, Irama…”.
Do you ever think about where you started from and where you arrived?
CC: «Hell yes! I keep this in mind every day to keep my feet on the ground, appreciate what I have and live lightly what comes.”
TO: “I couldn’t have said it better.”
Regrets from the beginning to today?
TO: “Nobody”.
CC: «Not work. If I could go back I would get married sooner (with the stylist Francesca Vaccaroed.) and I would be a son first, because now sometimes I feel the strain of being a somewhat adult father.”
Will you also, like Amadeus, consult your son Matteo when choosing some songs for the 2025 Festival?
CC: «No, he’s still small (ten years, ed.). However, he helped me select the songs Gold Zecchino».
For his Sanremo he decided to start from the rules and leave the names of the co-hosts at the end. So it follows the very Italian approach, whereby projects are first made and then the right people to develop them are identified, and not the American one, which works the other way around.
CC: «My approach is Carlona-style (laughs, ed.). I started by throwing away the bad things from my previous editions, the eliminations for example, and taking the best of those who came after me. They are small, current changes, such as the division between Big and Nuove Proposte. Then I will choose the songs and, as a final step, who will be with me on stage. Everything in his time, with peace of mind.”
The totonomi and the rumors intensify every day.
CC: «I don’t pay attention to it. I read very little, by my habit I’m not very social. I live in my own world, where I am only interested in the opinion of the public, thanks to which I have gotten this far. I am aware, however, that everyone has their role in comedy: there are criticisms, there are rumours.”
They’re also talking about you, Andrea.
TO: «And I, in turn, turn them over to my mother: “Look at the daughter you have!”. I play it. And in any case they leave whatever time they find.”
What are you listening to at the moment at the Conti house and at the Delogu house?
CC: «From me it is absolute silence. I don’t even want the radio in the car. I need to detox, even though I’m grateful to music: it was my luck to play records at home parties so as not to dance.”
TO: «I instead listen to the songs from the set list TIM Summer Hits: I’m a bit of a nerd. Even if Carlo teaches me to let go. Already when he was artistic director at the radio he told me: “How many sheets of paper do you have in front of you? Ten? One must be enough for you.”
CC: «Because the most important thing in this job is not to build too much, not to plan everything and to allow room for improvisation».
Is “letting go” one of the secrets to resisting so many years in Rai?
CC: «My first secret is that I have never sided with anyone, I have always remained equidistant. Every time the director changed, I presented myself with my work, honest, clean, without trying to do different things because someone told me so: sometimes it was accepted more, sometimes less, in the last twenty years on an ongoing basis.”
And in 2025 his years in Rai, Carlo, are forty. Are you, Andrea, also aiming for an equally long-lasting professional marriage?
TO: “Obvious! In the meantime I’m listening and doing my best.”
Today, however, on state television it seems that something is creaking more than usual, from the Scurati-Bertone case to the boycott of the journalists’ strike.
CC: «Not in my world, in entertainment. I am used to changes at the top, to directors who come and go, to Teledilì and Teledilà, to Teledisu and Teledigiù: I have never felt and do not feel pressure of any kind.”
TO: «A demonstration: i TIM Summer Hits I’m a free stage. Every artist can take sides and take a position, respecting everyone.”
Among the guests of this edition, also Raf and Antonello Venditti. Self Control or Night before exams? What position do you take?
CC: “Depends. There’s the Pink Floyd moment and there’s the Deep Purple moment, there’s the Raf moment and there’s the Venditti moment. However, as a good Fish, I am a romantic and therefore there are more moments Night before exams».
TO: «I sang it together with the audience and I felt like crying. I listened to Raf’s songs with a knife in my heart when they gave up on me. It’s really difficult to take a position in this case.”
There are those who compare i TIM Summer Hits to the mythical Festivalbarwhich aired from 1964 to 2007.
TO: «Welcome to the comparison!».
CC: «It’s an honor, because it was created by a great man like Vittorio Salvetti. It was the summer event par excellence, during which the most popular songs were rewarded, since jukeboxes were still in fashion. Then he disappeared for years. Luckily, I was recently born TIM Summer Hits and other programs, demonstrating a remarkable musical ferment”.
And with the aim of attracting young people fleeing to streaming platforms?
TO: «In reality, things done for young people end up conquering even the less young. Think about it Sea Outside. Yesterday we were talking about trap: many say that people over sixty can’t like it. But who said it? Let him listen to it and then we’ll see.”
Between misogynistic and violent texts, it is a genre that continues to divide and cause discussion.
CC: «As long as there are only songs and ditties it’s fine. It’s when the emulation of violence takes over in everyday life that it’s not good. But be careful to always place all the blame on music, school, television… There is family first and foremost. Unfortunately the real problem is precisely the family crisis.”
TO: «Trappers sing what they live: it is society that must change so that they can live and sing differently».
Source: Vanity Fair
I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.
