Alessandro was born in Rome where he was graduated in Political Science. In 1977, he began working in the world of television and journalism in RAI-TV with 30 minuti giovani, and, after working with Radio Tre and Radio Due cultural programmes, he conducted Mistero, Test, Mattina 2, il Tg2 and La Cronaca in diretta.

On behalf of Mediaset, he has created and presented many programmes including Dentro la notizia, Canale 5 News, Il Mondo Nuovo, Giorno per giorno, Amici animali, and Appuntamento con la Storia. Since 1997, he has been the name behind La Macchina del Tempo and the MT-Channel satellite programmes.

He is the editorial director of the monthly magazine entitled La Macchina del Tempo, and the series of books, bearing the same title, edited by Saggiatore, as well as the series published by De Agostini, La Macchina del Tempo Junior and I Viaggi della Macchina del Tempo published by Rizzoli Libri Illustrati. He is also a columnist and commentator for Il Giornale and Gente.

He teaches Marketing and Cultural and Scientific Communications at the faculty of CLEACC, Bocconi University, Milan, for the Publitalia '80 Masters program in Communications and the Masters program in Communications and Marketing UPA, at the University of Ca' Foscari, Venice as well as Theory and Techniques of Documentaries at the University of Milan-Bicocca.

In 1993 he married to Cristina Espinosa Navarro, but is now divorced. After 1996 he says he also had relationships with men. He came out in "Vanity Fair" in June 2004.