Media bill may boost Berlusconi empire

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, is in a more powerful position than ever after parliament approved a media reform bill that leaves his huge empire intact and raises the possibility of it expanding even further.

A conflict of interest bill, which allows the billionaire politician to retain ownership of all his assets, is also close to winning final approval.

Mr Berlusconi's House of Liberties centre-right coalition government enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

And in a separate development, the two public prosecutors who launched cases against Mr Berlusconi and his close aide, Cesare Previti, are being investigated on suspicion of abuse of office. The cases against the Prime Minister alleged that he and others bribed judges to induce them to approve corporate takeovers.

That investigation was suspended last month after his government rushed through a bill giving immunity from prosecution to parliament's top office holders.

The new media act allows Mr Berlusconi's company, Mediaset, to retain ownership of all three national commercial channels, ignoring a court ruling that one of them should be made public. It also redefines the advertising market to include print as well as television, and by allowing any one company to control up to 20 per cent of this market, it raises the possibility of Mr Berlusconi buying a coveted daily newspaper, such as Corriere della Sera, the biggest-selling paper in Italy.