THE regional elections in Italy on March 28th and 29th will, as Silvio Berlusconi has himself said, be of national importance—a big test of the prime minister's popularity after a troubled 2009. On March 20th he called his supporters to a big rally in Rome, but the turnout was disappointing. The results of the elections may be tight.

So you might expect that the flagship channel of Italy's public-service broadcaster, RAI, would be offering blanket pre-election coverage on March 26th. Instead, its only programme will begin at 11.10pm and last for just five minutes. Prime time will be given over to two quiz shows and a talent contest. RAI's other two channels, along with the three private ones run by the prime minister's Mediaset group, will also be bereft of election comment and analysis.

You'd never guess there's an election on

Nothing better illustrates Mr Berlusconi's grip on Italy's media. In a country with low newspaper readership and internet penetration, the main source of political information is terrestrial television. With three of the four main private channels controlled by the prime minister and two of its three state-run channels toeing a government line, news bulletins are bland at best. The editor of RAI 1's news, Augusto Minzolini, openly broadcasts pro-government editorials. When an English lawyer, David Mills, who was convicted of taking a bribe from Mr Berlusconi, escaped imprisonment because of the statute of limitations, RAI 1's news said wrongly that he had been acquitted.

This makes political talk shows more important. Although equal airtime legislation was introduced in 2000 to avoid bias, Italy's media watchdog, Agcom, decided last month that the best way of all to guarantee balance was to ban talk shows during the campaign. This decision might be dismissed as misplaced punctiliousness were it not for evidence that Agcom has been subject to pressure from Mr Berlusconi. Police looking into loan-sharking came across a conversation between the prime minister and an Agcom board member, in which Mr Berlusconi had allegedly demanded that it shut down “Annozero”, a hostile talk show. The board member reportedly offered help from officials in preparing a formal complaint.

At the request of the fourth private terrestrial channel and of Rupert Murdoch's Sky satellite network, a court has overturned Agcom's decision. But neither Mediaset nor RAI has reinstated the talk shows. The daily Corriere della Sera is trying to fill the void by hiring a noted TV journalist to present a programme on its website. The team from “Annozero” is mounting a web-only show in Bologna. But the web is a poor substitute. The blackout silenced Mr Berlusconi as well. Until March 23rd, that is, when he intervened by phone in a popular RAI breakfast TV programme and aired his views—without contradiction.