1976 in Italian television
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The RAI reform
1976 is the year of three turning points in the history of Italian television: the reform of RAI, the official beginning of the color broadcastings by RAI, and the birth of the private channels on air.
- 30 January. RAI reform. The firm passes from the government's control to the parliament's one. The National and the Second Channel change their names to Raiuno and Raidue and become two autonomous and concurrent channels. Raiuno is more traditionalist, while Raidue is more experimental and liberal. The information is served by two news programs of different political biases. Similar changes are performed in the radio sector. The reform makes RAI more pluralist and less censored, but accentuates too the spoils system.[1]
- 15 March: debut of TG1, directed by the Catholic Emilio Rossi, and TG2, directed by the socialist Andrea Barbato.[2]
- 25 October. New schedule of the RAI programs; RAI Due gets the same broadcasting time as Rai Uno (12:30-2:00 pm and 5:00-11:30 pm.)[1]
- 8 December: the magazine Odeon, in a report about the cabaret Crazy Horse in Paris, shows naked women for the first time on the Italian television.[3]
- 15 December. In Lombardy, the first regional broadcastings by RAI begin.[1]
The color
- 21 February: Peppino di Capri, with Non lo faccio più, wins the Sanremo Music festival, hosted by Giancarlo Guardabassi; for the last time, RAI broadcasts the event in black and white.
- 17 July: Starting from the inaugural ceremony, RAI broadcasts in color the 1976 Summer Olympics.[1]
- 7 August. RAI begins the "experimental phase" of the color, lasting six months, broadcasting from Wimbledon the tennis match Italy-England for the Davis Cup. The experimentation is limited to sport, news and cultural programs, excluding the entertainment (films, fictions and varieties).[4]
- 7 December: for the first time, RAI broadcasts the Premiere at La Scala (the Verdi's Othello); the show is in color. Outside the theatre, a battle between police and protesters is fought.[5]
- 30 December: the Economic Programming Committee chose definitively the PAL system for the color broadcastings.[1]
The private channels
- Telemontecarlo opens a studio in Milan, where the first Italian private news program (Il giornale nuovo, care of Indro Montanelli and the Il giornale's redaction) is recorded.
- June 9: TeleAppula, one of the first Italian private channels on air, begins to broadcast from the Mercadante theatre in Altamura.[6]
- June 25: A sentence of the Constitutional court allows to the private radio and TV stations to broadcast "not exceeding the local area".[7]
- Summer. After the Court's sentence, birth of other private channels: RTP (Radio Televisione Peloritana) in Messina. Telemilano in Milan, Teleroma, Quinta Rete and GBR, the first to broadcast in color, in Rome.(Telemilano and Teleroma were already active as cable channels).
- August. In Malta, birth of Radio Televisione Indipendente, private channel in Italian language, property of Angelo Rizzoli; in September, Dom Mintoff announces the opening of Telemalta, a TV in Italian managed in company by Rizzoli and the Maltean government, and relayed on the whole Italian territory. The project will remain unfulfilled.[8]
- 11 December: birth of the Puglia local TV TeleNorba. At the end of the year, in Italy around fifty private channels already exist. Ediliio Rusconi is the first Italian editor to enter in the TV business, founding Quinta Rete in Rome and Antenna Nord in Milan.
Debuts
Serials
- Space 1999 – sci-fi series coproduced by ITC and RAI; 2 seasons.
USA - Kojak
Variety
- L’altra domenica (The other Sunday) – hosted by Renzo Arbore, on Rai Due. The show is born as a "container" to fill the dead times among the sport programs in the Sunday afternoon, but becomes very popular among the younger public for its demented and then transgressive humor. It launches Roberto Benigni, in the role of a mad movie critic and Isabella Rossellini as special correspondent.
- Domenica in (Sunday in) – hosted, for the first three editions, by Corrado Mantoni, on Rai Uno. It's another "container show", similar by formula to L'altra domenica, but aimed to a family audience. Since the beginning, the show is a great public success; in the years, it had been hosted, among others, by Pippo Baudo, Lino Banfi, Mara Venier, Carlo Conti and Massimo Giletti and is now again one of the pivots of the RAI palimpsest, also if its more recent editions have been often accused to be "trash TV".
- Scommettiamo? (Let it bet?) – quiz inspired by the horse racing, hosted by Mike Bongiorno, who comes back in RAI after a two years "exile" at the Swiss TV.[9]
News and educational
On Rai Uno debut, for the Friuli earthquake, of the magazine Speciale TG1 (again today on air). The empowered Rai Due gets, beyond its news (TG2), its magazine (TG2 dossier), its sport magazine (Domenica Sprint) and its weather program (Meteo 2).
- Almanacco del giorno dopo (Next day's almanac) – magazine of petty culture.
- TG l’una, quasi un rotocalco per la domenica (TG one hour, an almost magazine for the Sunday) – talk show with reportages, broadcast on Rai Uno the Sunday at the lunch hour.
- Bontà loro (For their goodness) – first Italian talk-show, hosted by Maurizio Costanzo, on RAI Uno the Monday late evening. The show is a novity[check spelling] for the tone of the interviews, polite but not obsequious, also towards the politicians, and sometimes unprejudiced; famous is the question about her private life to Tina Anselmi, first Italian woman minister.
- Odeon, tutto quanto fa spettacolo (Odeon, all about show business) – magazine about show business by Brando Giordani and Emilio Ravel, famous for having broken the RAI taboo about female nakedness (see over).[10]