Where are all the young hot men on Italian TV?

Last night I watched the Italian logies/oscars, 51° Premio TV 2011. The annual programme on Rai 1 celebrated the top ten Italian TV programmes for 2011. 


I watched as they showcased the top ten and by the time they'd got to the forth, Striscia la Notizia, I'd started to sense a pattern: so far they were all reality or infotainment programmes and the majority of programmes featured TV presenting duos in the form of one ugly older man accompanied by a beautiful young (scantily clad) woman.


After each programme was announced they were given around fifteen minutes air time to promote their programmes and so began the extravaganza of bald heads and boobs, butts and legs. By the time I'd got through to the sixth show, my tolerance for exposure to older ugly men and over exposure to young perky surgically enhanced breasts had worn thin.


Though while ODing on an international theory of attractiveness gone horribly wrong - it's "the bold and the beautiful" not "the bald and the beautiful" Italy! - my first thoughts automatically turned to seek out the older women.


Alas, the seventh programme, "Chi l'ha visto", was fronted by an older woman wearing a black conservative pants suit. However, this programme did not receive the fifteen minute promotional opportunity afforded to all the others. Instead she had just two minutes to receive the gold oscar like trophy, say a few thank yous and depart. So,out of two hours and 20 minutes of programming the older woman in the pants suit recieved just two minutes of the fifteen minutes of fame afforded to "bald and the boobyful".


While there were flashes of older surgically enhanced women in the audience, the secret to being a female presenter on Italian TV was clear - young and beautiful with bountiful breasts.


For an analysis on the young, beautiful and boobiful women on Italian TV, be sure to watch Lorella Zanardo's  Il corpo delle donne - The Body of Women . The closing shot of a woman strung up like a slab of cured ham in a meat locker leaves you with a lasting taste of how women are represented on Italian TV.


But back to 51° Premio TV 2011...


So with the surgically enhanced older women sidelined for the surgically enhanced younger women, it was when the eighth programme was presented, "Le Iene", that my attention turned to another group missing from the top ten until now - young men. While Le Iene had yet another beautiful young woman presenting, this time she was accompanied by nine young men. This got me thinking, where are all the hot young men on Italian TV?


By the end of the programme I'd collated the following statistics about the top ten TV programmes in Italy for 2011:


7/10 - have older men presenters
4/10 - have presenting duos with older ugly men and young beautiful women
2/10 - have older women presenters
1/10 - have young men presenters


And my worst fears were confirmed: hot young Italian men are massively underrepresented on Italian TV. Why?

When I think of some of the most popular TV presenters in Australia, the UK and America I think of the likes of Ant & Dec, Rove McManus and Ryan Seacrest. While their level of attractiveness is subjective, surely female viewers enjoy watching young male presenters just as much as watching older men? Personally, I'm all for watching young attractive men over older bald ones. With Lorella Zanardo's documentary stating that women make up 60 per cent of Italian TV viewers, why are our screens full of baldies and boobies? 


With international hot men indicators across the web showing young Italian men dominating the the top spots, why, ow, why are they not dominating our TV screens?


Why is Italy's most presentable group kept hidden? Where are the young hot men on Italian TV? 


Can someone find them and put them on air or are we doomed to re-live some older man's porn fantasy everytime we flick on the TV?