Roberto Pettinato

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Roberto Pettinato is an Argentine musician, journalist and television presenter.

Pettinato's father, Roberto Sr., was a high-ranking corrections officer in the administration of Juan Perón. When a coup deposed Perón in 1955, he was accused of being involved in political repression and was driven out of the country together with his family. Roberto Jr. has maintained that leaving his childhood home in the dark is his earliest memory.

Pettinato became involved in the Argentine rock scene of the late 1970s mostly as a journalist with the Expreso Imaginario monthly magazine, which he directed from 1980 until its demise in 1982. In parallel, he was the on-and-off saxophonist for the 1980s band Sumo, led by Italian-Argentine Luca Prodan.

After Prodan's death and the band's dissolution, he started working in television together with Gerardo Sofovich, co-hosting La noche del Domingo in the early 1990s. Later on, he gained popularity by hosting Duro de acostar on Telefe, a midnight talk show modeled after David Letterman's. In the mid-1990s, he attained cult status by co-hosting post-midnight sports and showbiz show Orsai (a deformation of the football term off-side) with Gonzalo Bonadeo on one of Argentina's many sports cable channels.

As an actor, he took part in Primicias, a television series produced by Pol-ka and broadcast by Canal 13.

He also hosted TV programs Mira quien canta, Todos al diván, Petti en vivo (Canal 9), Un aplauso para el asador (Canal 13) and the ironic Indomables (América TV).

Following the unexpected ending of Indomables due to a conflict between the production company PPT and América TV, the production renamed and moved the program to Canal 13, where Pettinato (as of october 2006) hosts Duro de Domar.

He currently also directs the rock magazine La Mano and hosts since 2004 a successful FM radio morning show called El Show de la Noticia.

On 22 December 2005, President Néstor Kirchner named the Argentine correctional officers academy after Pettinato Sr. Clarín note (Spanish)