A swearword or vulgar expression is pronounced on Italian television every 21 minutes, says a report by Meta Research, a company that monitors television in Italy. The research association interviewed 130 experts including psychologists, advertisers and linguists to gauge reactions to the phenomenon, and found that 73 per cent thought the language used stemmed from a desire to increase viewer figures. Almost half of the panel of experts thought the frequency with which bad language and vulgar gestures were used, including during daytime TV programming, would lead to them becoming commonplace. Meta Research also rated TV personalities according to how "politically correct" they are linguistically. Top of the list with 67 per cent came Piero Angela, the popular history and nature documentary TV presenter, while on the privately-owned Mediaset channels, talk-show host Maurizio Costanzo topped the ranking with 51 per cent.