Italian TV head vows to be impartial

Berlusconi has pledged to avoid a conflict of interest

ROME, Italy -- The new head of Italian state broadcaster RAI has said it will be run impartially.

Antonio Baldassarre also denied allegations that he would hand Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi effective control of 90 percent of the country's airwaves.

Berlusconi has come in for sharp criticism over the issue because his family controls

the Mediaset broadcasting company, RAI's only competition.

RAI's three networks and the three private networks in Berlusconi's media empire account for virtually all the major programming on Italian TV.

The Italian parliament appointed a new five-man board for RAI on Friday, ending days of wrangling.

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But those responsible for choosing the board -- the speakers of the upper and lower houses of parliament -- were both Berlusconi allies and the centre-left opposition expressed concern that the appointments gave him unusually wide control of the nation's media.

However, Baldassarre, the former president of the Italian constitutional court who was nominated to head the RAI board, said he would stand above the political fray.

"I will not be at the service of any government. I think that for once there can be a change and that RAI can leave behind the usual politicking that has marked it up until now," Baldassarre told the Il Tempo newspaper on Sunday.

Baldassarre, who has previously said that some of RAI's output was "stupid," told Il Tempo that he wanted to put the emphasis back on public broadcasting.

"Up until now RAI has made a fundamental error, that of competing with commercial television on its own territory and looking to get audience share at any cost," he said.

Berlusconi has denied that he is looking to dominate Italian television, saying his channels are politically neutral.

He accuses RAI of favouring the centre-left and says its news shows tried to wreck his election campaign last year.

But Enrico Boselli, head of the opposition Social Democrats party, has said: "Everything would be fine if only Berlusconi were not the owner of Mediaset. We are now going to have to fight for democracy."