Overview of the events of 1977 in Italian television
This is a list of Italian television related events from 1977.
Events
RAI
- 1 January. Last airing of Carosello (Carousel), the advertising program broadcast by RAI every evening since 1957. The final show is a dancing and singing exhibition by Raffaella Carrà, sponsored by Fernet Stock. Despite the popularity of Carosello, its formula (mini-films and cartoons, about two minutes long) is considered obsolete by the advertising agencies, which by now prefer the spots, as they are shorter (thirty seconds) and more effective.[1]
- 20 January. The socialist Paolo Grassi, former director of Piccolo Teatro and La Scala, is nominated as the new RAI president. Under his leadership, the company enjoys for three years a freedom from political authorities. The experiment would never be repeated.[2]
- 1 February. RAI begins, after six months of experimentation, the official broadcastings in color. The first shows aired, on RAI 1, are the television film The suicide club, of the series Mystery and Imagination, and an ABBA concert. The next day, RAI 2 airs the first film in color, The Arrangement. Followed by the turn of the first TV journal (21 February) and of the first RAI fiction (The fatal eggs, 27 February, see below). However, the complete switch-off of black and white will need two years. In a time of deep economic crisis, the color sets are above the means of many Italian families.[3]
- 22 April. Fifteen years after the Canzonissima scandal, Dario Fo and Franca Rame come back in RAI with an anthology of their most famous pieces. The first play, Mistero Buffo, arouses the protests of the Vatican and a complaint for contempt of religion. Nonetheless, the cycle goes on regularly and without censures.[4]
- 27 May. The RAI production Padre Padrone by the Taviani brothers, is the first television film to win the Cannes festival.
- 3 June. Emilio Rossi, director of TG1, is shot in the legs by the Red Brigades.[2]
Private channels.
In Italy, 256 private channels are registered, but only 80 are really active; they are reunited in two organizations, the National Consortium of Free TV and the catholic FIEL.
- 17 April. In Abruzzo, Teleadriatica is the first Italian private channel to broadcast live a football match (the regional derby Pescara-Sanbenedettese, shoot from the balcony of a private house). The next week, the Lega Nazionale Professionisti authorizes Teleadriatica to air a synthesis of the Pescara's matches.[5]
- 2 May. In Milan, Antenna Nord, owned by the right-wing editor Edilio Rusconi, begins to broadcast. Rusconi, proprietary of other TV channels in Rome, Florence and Veneto, is, by now, the most potent tycoon of the Italian private television.[6]
- 21 October. Tele Torino International airs Let's strip together ("Spogliamoci insieme"), a sexy quiz with strip-teases performed by amateurish housewives; the program gets wide resonance on the press, also outside Italy, and is largely imitated by other local televisions. The Turin channel is known for another trash show, Tomorrow we die, with surgeries executed on air.[7]
- 3 November. In Legnano, the channel Antenna 3, with Enzo Tortora as vice-president, begins to broadcast.
Debuts
Variety
- Portobello – with Enzo Tortora, who comes back in RAI after eight years of "exile" for contrasts with the company. In Portobello, as in an ideal street market, collectors or sellers, eccentric inventors, lonely hearts, people looking for lost friends, are put in contact with the public at home that intervenes by phone; mascot of the show is a mute parrot, become proverbial. The show, also if often accused of sentimentalism, is for years one of the most loved by the Italian public, till the Tortora's judiciary troubles, and then his death, cause his suspension.[8]
- Apriti, sabato (Saturday, open) – talk show on Saturday afternoon, hosted by Paolo Frajese.
- Buonasera con... (Good evening with) – show for children, including cartoons and sitcoms; it introduces in Italy the mecha cartoons.
- Discoring – musical show, ideated and hosted, in the first editions, by Gianni Boncompagni; it's, till to Eighties, the most popular TV show of it its kind.[9]
- Piccolo slam (Little slam) – musical show, aimed to the young public, with Stefania Rotolo and Sammy Bardot ; 2 seasons. The program introduces the disco music in the Italian television; among the special guests, there is also a young Jodie Foster in a dancing performance.[10]
- Gioco città (City game) – show for children, with Claudio Sorrentino and the Miracles Alley Cats.
- Non stop – by Enzo Trapani. The show is innovative for the absence of a presenter, the fast pace and the use of the color; it reveals many young comic actors as Carlo Verdone and groups as The grimace (with a debuting Massimo Troisi), The Miracle Alley cats and The Giancattivi (with Francesco Nuti).[11]
News and educational
- Check-up – medicine magazine.
- Spazio libero (Free space) – "access programs" broadcast by RAI but autonomously produced by cultural, political or religious associations.
- Eurogol – sport magazine about the UEFA cups.
- Sereno variabile (Serene Variable) – travel magazine, again on air in 2019; entered in the Guinness World Records because hosted for 42 years by the same person, Osvaldo Bevilacqua.[12]
Serials
In 1977, RAI increases considerably the importation of American serials. Columbo and Happy Days get an immediate success, but the hit of the year is Fury; the "Western horse" becomes the Italian children's favorite, also if his adventures are in black and white and twenty years old.
Foreign and private channels
- Montecarlo sera (Montecarlo evening) – news magazine on Telemontecarlo.
- Paroliamo – quiz on Telemontecarlo, hosted by Lea Pericoli.
- Quelli della girandola (The Catherine wheel people) – tutorial show on RSI
- Superclassifica show (Super hit parade show) – musical show on Telemilano, care of the magazine TV Sorrisi e canzoni and hosted by Maurizio Seymandi; migrated on Canale 5, it becomes one of the most popular show of the Fininvest network and goes on till 2001.[13]