Overview of the events of 1979 in Italian television
This is a list of Italian television related events from 1979.
Events
RAI
- January 13: Mino Vergnaghi, with Amare, wins the Sanremo music festival, hosted by Mike Bongiorno and Anna Maria Rizzoli. Rai broadcasts integrally only the finally evening, that gets a rating of 22.3 million viewers.[1]
- 22 February. Announcement of the sentence in the Catanzaro trial, for the Piazza Fontana bombing. The hearings have been, for the first time, integrally shoot by the RAI cameras. From 25 September, a selection in five episodes of the proceedings is aired, showing to the public the embarrassed and reticent depositions of politicians, such as Giulio Andreotti and Mariano Rumor.[2]
- 26 April. The documentary Trial for rape, realized by a feminist collective, shocks the public opinion, showing the victim of a ravishment humiliated and criminalized by the defense attorneys.[3]
- 3 December: the impersonator Alighiero Noschese, long time a star of Italian television, shots himself in the chapel of the Roman clinic where he was hospitalized; he suffered for years from depression, because the divorce and some professional fails.[4]
- 15 December. The adolescent actress Fabiana Udenio announces the beginning of RETE 3 broadcasting. This is the schedule of the first day.
Rete 3 is, in the intents, focused on the local realities, with programs and news realized by the RAI regional offices; however, for years it will be a “ghost channel”, lacking of means and ignored by the public.[5]
Private channels
In 1979, the Italian private televisions have a breakthrough: the most active buy massively films and American telefilms, hire RAI stars as Mike Bongiorno and Pippo Baudo and begin to broadcast in National scope (the rule forcing them to operate only locally is bypassed, airing on several local stations the same show, prerecorded on videotape). Particularly dynamic is the Silvio Berlusconi’s Telemilano 58.
New televisions (with the date of the first airing)
- 4 March: TV Port, syndication of 90 local channels, specialized in American film and telefilm.[6]
- 19 June: Antenna Sicilia, owned by the newspaper editor Mario Cancio Sanfilippo, art director Pippo Baudo
- July: Rete televisiva Italiana, owned by Il Messaggero's editor Carlo Perrone.[7]
- 2 July : Compagnia televisioni Associate; syndication of 20 local channels.[8]
- Autunni : TV Parma[7]
- 8 September. GPE-Telemond, by Arnoldo Mondadori editore, later fused with Rete televisiva Italiana in Rete 4.[9]
The Berlusconi's ascent
- 30 January: Silvio Berlusconi founds Rete Italia, society for the marketing of TV shows. The newborn society gets right away a big deal, buoying 325 movies from Titanus for 2 billion liras.
- 13 September : Birth of Publitalia, the Berlusconi's advertising media agency.
- December. Telemilano 58, till then visible only in Milan, extends its signal to the whole Lombardy.[7]
- 5 December. Mike Bongiorno debuts on Silvio Berlusconi's Telemilano 58 with the game show The dreams in the weaver; he's the first TV star who leaves RAI to work full-time for a private network. The collaboration between Bongiorno and the public company, lasted 27 years, has got into crisis few months before with an unsuccessful remake of Lascia o raddoppia?
Television shows
Drama
Miniseries
Among the foreign productions, the hit of the year is the American Holocaust, with 20.2 million viewiers.[1]
Period dramas
- Accadde ad Ankara (It happened in Ankara) – by Mario Landi, in 3 episodes; reconstruction of the “Cicero affair” with Stefano Satta Flores as Elyesa Bazna.
- Le affinità elettive (Elective affinities) – by Gianni Amico, from the Johan Wolfgang Goethe’s novel, with Franco Graziosi, Nino Castelnuovo and the future director Francesca Archibugi; 3 episodes.[14]
- Bel Ami – by Sandro Bolchi, with Corrado Pani, in 4 episodes; from the Guy de Maupassant’s novel.
- Che fare? (What is to be done?) – by Gianni Serra, with Elisabetta Pozzi and Remo Girone, in 5 episodes; from the Nikolaj Gavrilovič Černyševskij’s novel.
- Il delitto Notarbatolo (The Notarbartolo affair) – by Alberto Negrin, in 3 episodes, with Ivo Garrani; reconstruction of the first clamorous Mafia crime, happened 1n 1893.
- La commediante veneziana (The venetian actress) – by Savatore Nocita, in 5 episodes, from the Raffaello Calzini's novel; the life of the actress Teodora Ricci, lover of Carlo Gozzi.
- I vecchi e I giovani (The old and the young ones) – by Marco Leto, with Gabriele Ferzetti and Alain Cuny, in 5 episodes; from the Luigi Pirandello’s novel. In the Sicilia of the late Nineteenth century, the “old generation” (the Risorgimento men, by now corrupted or disillusioned) face the “young people” (the socialists of the Fasci Siciliani).[15]
- Martin Eden – by Giacomo Battiato, with Christopher Connelly, in 5 episodes, from the Jack London’s novel.
Mystery
Fantastic
News and educational
- Made in England - reportage about England, by Enzo Biagi, in 12 episodes.[18]
- Il cuore della Jugoslavia è fatto di mulini (Yugoslavia's heart is made by mills) - reportage by Tonino Guerra, in 3 episodes.[19]
- Sono arrivati quattro fratelli (Four brothers are arrived) – documentary by Maricla Boggio about the child-adoption. [20]
- Un autore una città (An author a city) – six great Italian writers speak about their link with the home town.[21]
- Quando è arrivata la televisione (When television arrived) – documentary by Ermanno Olmi, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Italian television [22]
Variety
Private channels