Berlusconi's message falls flat on TV, social media Blogmeter find no interest following video from ex-premier

(ANSA) - Rome, September 19 - Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's much-anticipated video message about his future flat-lined with social media, Blogmeter said Thursday.And the leader of the People of Freedom (PdL) did little better on television, where there was scant attention paid to Berlusconi's announcement Wednesday evening that he would revive his Forza Italia political movement.According to Blogmeter, which tracks social media platforms, Berlusconi's video did not generate many tweets on Twitter, citations on blogs, or sharing across other platforms.Between 4 p.m. Wednesday, only a few hours before Berlusconi's video was released, and 10 a.m. Thursday, only 51,685 mentions on Twitter were found.That's a dramatic drop from the interest Berlusconi generated during last February's election campaign, when the ex-premier stimulated as much as 200,000 tweets in five hours.And while it drew mentions and small excerpts of the statement were shown on several TV news programs, only channels owned by Berlusconi ran the entire message.RAI's TG1 drew its usual market share of just under 22%, or 5.134 million views for the 8 p.m. news; while television network La7 drew 1.7 million viewers in the same time slot; and Berlusconi's TG5 Mediaset drew 18.13% with 4.352 million viewers.It had been expected that Berlusconi would announce plans for his future in the video message, released just hours before a Senate panel took its first step towards stripping the ex-premier of his parliamentary seat after a tax-fraud conviction against him became definitive.Senior PdL members had been threatening to sink the coalition government if their rivals in Premier Enrico Letta's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) voted against Berlusconi.Yet in his video message Berlusconi made no mention of the future of the fragile executive, stressing he would remain the centre right's leader even if banned from the Senate.