Berlusconi unamused by TV satire mocking him

"It's only the latest attack of a system of communication, of television and the press," he said, "that since 2001 has systematically attacked the government and the Prime Minister." He then read out a list of seven Italian television personalities who he claimed were guilty of such attacks.

The last time Mr Berlusconi read out such a list, the comedienne and two television journalists named were quickly barred from the airwaves. It has yet to be seen whether the same fate awaits his seven new enemies. The new show, hosted by ageing rocker Adriano Celentano, won huge ratings - peaking at 14.2 million, or 47 per cent of Italian viewers - for the appearance of Michele Santoro, one of the three sidelined three years ago by Mr Berlusconi, on his comeback to the Italian airwaves.

To the outside world there is something bizarre about a media mogul worth more than $6bn (£3.4bn) complaining of being victimised. His company owns Italy's three national commercial television stations and he has political control of the state-owned Rai channels.

Romano Prodi, leader of the centre-left opposition, said: "They are launching a new list of proscriptions. The problem is not what Celentano said, but what the TV news programmes say or do not say every day."

Opposition politicians frequently accuse the television news programmes on Rai Uno, the equivalent of BBC1, with partiality and distortion.

"Celentano spoke freely on his show," Mr Prodi went on, "and it amazes me that people become enraged just because he spoke freely. It would be better if the same liberty was assured on a daily basis on television."

At the root of Mr Berlusconi's lament is the fact that the three main Rai channels have long been parcelled out among Italy's political parties. While the Prime Minister can be sure of being treated gently on Rai Due, Rai Tre, controlled by the left, is consistently hostile. Meanwhile, Rai Uno, the most important channel, is supposedly centrist but, in fact, is bitterly fought over.

Last week, Mr Prodi said he wanted to abolish the system by which control of the national broadcaster is in the hands of the political parties, replacing it with a more neutral arrangement as in Britain or Spain.

But Lucia Annunziata, a left-wing journalist who had a torrid spell as president of Rai under Mr Berlusconi, told The Independent: "It's impossible to get rid of the system: they can talk about it but they won't do it. Rai is the main cash cow of Italian politics, and for all the political parties it's a free publicity machine."

She added: "It's a deeply ideologised information network - and it's always been like this. That's not Berlusconi's fault, it's the fault of the Christian Democrats." Post-war Italy was rule by the "democristiani" until the early Nineties.

"Mr Berlusconi's outburst was a typical manoeuvre - he let the show go on and then attacked it days afterwards." The Prime Minister has a bill going through parliament to allow him to run campaign commercials on television before the election, which are banned at present. "This is how he puts pressure on his coalition allies to back the bill," she said.

Freedom House, the US monitoring organisation, ranks Italy 74th in the world for media freedom, due to the "unprecedented concentration of media ownership".