At Rai, a director is for life. That is why finding a role for Ranucci is such a challenge

When a company decides that one of its executives has finished managing, it sends them a letter. At Rai, however, a fan is opened for them. This is what will happen to Sigfrido Ranucci, but it is what happens to every director, deputy director and manager at what is probably the only company in the world of which one can say that ‘a director is for life’. Just like De Beers diamonds. Once appointed, at Rai one directs or ‘deputy-directs’ (the verb is a Rai invention) networks, genres, departments and subsidiaries. And one directs or deputy-directs for life. In short, when one is removed from a post, that’s when the fan comes into play. Just as in Carlo Goldoni’s great comedy, "Il Ventaglio", once broken or lost – and sought after by a host of lawyers, officials, trade unionists, programme planners, directors and labourers – it becomes a trophy of reconciliation. But this is no metaphor; it is Article 5 of the Charter of Rights and Duties, born of the RAI-Usigrai agreement of 27 May 1996, which, in the somnambulistic prose of the trade union minutes, stipulates that a senior journalist – though there is an almost identical agreement for non-journalists – should they find themselves without a senior position, may choose between three other equivalent posts offered to them by the company. The ‘range’, as it were. And that is not all.

Over the years, through judgement after judgement, Roman case law has constructed a doctrine of demotion in the television industry characterised by Goldonian wit (as the title demands) and almost patristic subtlety, according to which a television executive is not merely stripped of their title or salary should they be removed from their post. But they are also deprived of their visibility, which has become a legally protected right on a par with health and personal property. In December 2002, for instance, the Court of Rome ruled that sending a presenter from the ‘Approfondimento’ programme to produce a docudrama – that is, a scripted programme inspired by real events – causes ‘serious and irreparable harm’ to their professional standing. And so the executive cannot be sacked, cannot be demoted, and cannot even be bored into inaction. But since positions of equal standing, within a company that has not dismissed anyone for half a century, are usually already all occupied by someone who, in turn, cannot be moved unless offered three other posts, the comical, the sublime, ensues. Brace yourselves. Management departments at Rai are created. All the time. They spring up by budding, like corals, and fan out – needless to say – like ‘Il Ventaglio’. Goodness me, here is the list: the Genres Coordination Department, the Editorial Department for News and Current Affairs, the Strategic Initiatives Coordination Department, the Specialised Digital Radio and Podcasts Department...

All these structures materialised in the organisational chart at the very moment when a post was needed for someone who had just vacated another one, who in turn had vacated it to make way for a third person. In March 2025, Silvia Calandrelli stepped down from the management of Rai Cultura and was ‘placed directly under the Chief Executive’, which is the polite way of putting it in the corridors. She was offered the chairmanship of Rai Pubblicità, but she turned it down, citing a possible demotion – the only word that carries immediate weight on Viale Mazzini – and so she was handed the post of Head of Sustainability at Rai – ESG, a unit created three years earlier for Roberto Natale, who had chosen it for himself upon his return to the company and then left it vacant to take a seat on the board of directors. A second-hand department, repurposed for a surplus executive. And since we’re talking about sustainability, it must be acknowledged that at least here the method matches the mission. Nothing is thrown away; everything is repurposed.

The RAI organisational chart is like a sedimentary rock. It is read from the bottom up, layer by layer, and each layer represents a director who has moved on. Sigfrido Ranucci, whose fate RAI is currently racking its brains over, is a textbook case, because he is a deputy director ad personam. Deputy to no one, head of no department, he manages himself. In Viale Mazzini there are three of these self-directed figures, and each runs their own show, in a hierarchical solitude that has something monastic about it. The organisation will therefore have to offer them three posts of at least equal importance – that is, find them three different and equally prestigious ways of being nobody’s deputy. In practical terms, from Goldoni to Edgar Allan Poe. From "Il Ventaglio" to "Tre passi nel Delirio".