1953 in Italian television

In 1953, the experimental phase of Italian television is almost over. During the year, the two repeaters in Milan and Turin are joined by five more ones covering most of Northern and Central Italy. Even before its official launch, however, RAI television comes under harsh criticism from the press, especially for the low quality of the shows and its state monopoly regime.^[1]

• 9 March: The Italian news program has its first mishap. For Stalin's funeral, it broadcasts archive footage of a burial on Red Square, where the Soviet dictator appears alive and recognizable.^[2]
• 2 June: The news program redeems itself by airing the images of the coronation of Elizabeth II.^[3]
• September: After a break for the summer, television broadcasts restart and become daily. Half the schedule is composed of movies.^[1]
• 3 October : Beginning of television broadcasting in Rome (20 September in Genoa).^[1]
• 11 October First issue of La domenica sportiva. (see below) Three reports are broadcast, about :
  • the football (soccer) match Inter-Fiorentina for the Serie A 1953-1954, won by Inter 2-1;
  • a 50 kilometres race walk in Abbiategrasso won by Giuseppe Dordoni (the athlete is also the first guest in studio of the show);
  • Tre Valli Varesine cycling race, won by Nino Defilippis^[4]
• 22 October The 24 years old Nicoletta Orsomando debuts on RAI, introducing a documentary for children; she will be, for forty years, the most famous and popular of RAI’s “signorina buonasera” (female in-vision continuity announcer).^[5][6]
• 19 November: The television license fee is instituted.^[1]
• 13 December: For the first time, Italian television airs an international football match (Italy- Czechoslovakia, from Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa), with Carlo Bacarelli [it] as commentator, sided by Vittorio Veltroni [it] and Nicolò Carosio.^[7]