Simona Ventura

Simona Ventura (born 1 April 1965) is an Italian television presenter. The leading TV host of Rai 2, she is the third woman to have presented the Sanremo Music Festival, after Loretta Goggi and Raffaella Carrà and before Antonella Clerici.

Ventura was born in Bentivoglio, Emilia-Romagna, but grew up in Chivasso, Piedmont. She started in TV on Domani sposi with Giancarlo Magalli on Rai Uno. Her love for sport took her into sports reporting: for the Italian Telemontecarlo she was the correspondent during the 1990 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 1992 and the 1992 Summer Olympics.

At RAI, Ventura appeared with Pippo Baudo on the Sunday afternoon programme Domenica in (1991) and then, in 1992, the sports programme La domenica sportiva. She has also been on Pavarotti International.

Ventura's career continued on Mediaset channels hosting variety shows like Mai dire gol, Cuori e Denari, Boom, Scherzi a parte (a programme very similar to Punk'd), Festivalbar, Le Iene, Matricole, Gli indelebili '99, cari amici miei, Zelig - Noi facciamo cabaret, and Piccole canaglie. In all, she spent eight years at Mediaset.

In 1996, Ventura hosted the newcomers' section of the Sanremo Music Festival for RAI.

In 2001 Simona went back to Rai Due to host the seventh edition of the Sunday afternoon show "Quelli che il calcio" and a prime-time show called "Quelli che lo smoking". In 2002 Pippo Baudo chose her for the "Dopofestival" (a variety show about the Sanremo Music Festival) and she then presented a late night television show with Gene Gnocchi called "La grande notte del lunedì sera". She has been presenting the Italian version of Celebrity Survivor, L'isola dei famosi, since 2003. In 2004 she was the host presenter of the Sanremo Music Festival. In 2005 and 2006 she presented Music Farm, a show similar to the Hit Me, Baby, One More Time format, on Rai Due.

She also had the Prime Time Access Rule on Rai Uno with Le tre scimmiette and in 2007 appeared in prime time with Colpo di genio.

Simona Ventura presented Quelli che... il Calcio until 2011. She led the popular reality show L'isola dei famosi for 8 editions. In the fall of 2009, she abandoned her role as a judge on X-Factor. Working on his two most important programmes, Simona Ventura in May 2011 had some problems with the company. The director of RAI 2 Massimo Liofredi tried not to renew the contract of Simona Ventura for this reason after she signed a contract with Sky.