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1980 in Italian television

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List of years in Italian television
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This is a list of Italian television related events from 1980.

Events

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RAI

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  • 9 February: in the final evening of the Sanremo Festival (won by Toto Cotugno) the host Roberto Benigni, on air, good-naturedly mocks Pope John Paul II, calling him “Woytilaccio” (Big bad Woytila). Benigni speaks ironically about Catholic sex morality and asks his partner Olimpia Carrisi to make love on the stage. The performance of the actor is considered controversial and causes a parliamentary question.[1]
  • 12 June. Sergio Zavoli replaces of Paolo Grassi as RAI president, while Willy de Luca becomes general director. In September, the directors of all three channel and of the news headlines are also replaced. After the freedom of the “era Grassi”, the government parties regain the control of the estate, despite the undeniable professionality of the new president.[2]
  • 18 June. The match Italy-Czechoslovakia for UEFA Euro 1980 gets 24, 700 million viewers. It is the second largest audience of the year, after the final evening of Fantastico (25, 600 million).[3]
  • 2 August. Bologna massacre, with 85 dead; RAI covers the event with extraordinary editions of the news. The nation views the shocking images shot by its Bonosia seat. Followed by the airing of the funeral of the victims, where the state authorities are harshly criticized.[4]
  • September. Musica insieme is the last RAI show aired in black and white.
  • October. RAI 1 and RAI 2 extend the hours of broadcasting. The traditional pause of the afternoon is abolished; in the weekends, the beginning of the programs is set at 10 AM.[2]
  • 23 November. Irpinia earthquake. For a week, the RAI programs are almost exclusively dedicated to the huge tragedy, with special editions of the news, touching reportages and appeals to the solidarity. On 26 November, the president Sandro Pertini, speaking from the places of the disaster, denounces the delays and the inefficiencies of the help efforts.[5]

Private channels

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Notwithstanding a series of legal battles brought by RAI to maintain the private channels in the local scope, with sentences of the tribunals often contradictory, the year sees the birth of the two first Italian national networks: the Angelo Rizzoli's Prima Rete Indipendente and the Silvio Berlusconi's Canale 5. At the end of the year, there are 370 channels affiliated to a network, against 266 independent ones.[2]

  • March. Birth of Nuova Emittenza Televisiva (NET), network of 18 televisions, managed by the FGCI and directed by Walter Veltroni.[6]
  • 30 September. In spite of a warning of the Ministry of Communications, Silvio Berlusconi's Tele Milano 58 begins to broadcast in the whole Northern Italy with the mark Canale 5; almost immediately, the network extends to Center and South, with the mark Canale 10, and the 1 November covers the whole Italian territory.[2]
  • November. The newborn Canale 5 gets straightaway a sensational goal, buying for $900,000 the TV rights for the Mundialito (a tournament among the World Champions football team, played in Uruguay). After long negotiations, RAI and Canale 5 get an agreement: Canale 5 can use the RAI satellite, while in exchange the State television can broadcast the matches of the Italian team. The Mundialito is the first great public success of Canale 5, with 8 million viewers.[7]
  • 13 December. Birth of Angelo Rizzoli's network Prima Rete Indipendente, active in the Northern Italy and in Rome. The news program, Contatto, is trusted to Maurizio Costanzo (as Rizzoli, affiliated to the P2 lodge).[8]

Debuts

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Serials

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  • Il fascino dell’insolito (The charm of the strange) – anthology series of fantastic stories; 3 seasons.[9]

Variety

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  • Flash – quiz about the current  news, with Mike Bongiorno (who works in RAI for the last time); 2 seasons.
  • Fresco fresco (Very fresh) – show for children of the summer; 3 seasons.

Private channels

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News and educational

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  • Mixer – magazine of current news and culture, care of Giovanni Minoli, famous for its graphic experimentations and for the “Mixer face to face”, interviews of famous personalities, whose tight close-up fills the background; lasted till 1998.[11]
  • Il processo del lunedì (The Monday's trial) – talk show about Italian soccer, care of Aldo Biscardi, the first (and, for long time, the only) public success of RAI 3. For two decades the most popular sport program of the Italian TV, also if often charged to be “trash TV” for its harsh verbal brawl, it goes on till 1997 (with a reprisal from 2013 to 2017) on RAI. A similar show, Il processo di Biscardi, is on air since 1993 on various private channels.[12]

Television shows

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Drama

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Miniseries

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  • Un uomo da ridere (A man to laugh) – by Lucio Fulci, with Franco Franchi in the autobiographical and partly dramatic role of a comic actor; 6 episodes.

Mystery

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  • Bambole: scene da un delitto perfetto (Dolls, scenes from a perfect crime) – by Alberto Negrin, with Adalberto Maria Merli, in 3 episodes. Noir drama, with an unusual setting (Rome in 1918) and inspired by the true Mesones affair.
  • Delitto in piazza (Crime in the place) – by Nanni Fabbri, with Gino La Monica, in 3 episodes. A simple clerk, improvised detective, solves an intricate plot.
  • L’enigma delle due sorelle (The two sisters’ enigma) – thriller by Mario Foglietti, with Delia Boccardo and Giampiero Albertini, in 4 episodes. A female fashion photographer is persecuted by the phone calls of her sister (died two years before in a car accident), while around her the murders follow each other.
  • Poco a poco (Step by step) – by Alberto Sironi, with Flavio Bucci, Diego Abantantuono and Therese Ann Savoy; from Francis Durbridge's The gentle hook, transferred in Milan, in 3 episode.[14]

Period dramas

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Serial

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  • Fermate il colpevole (Stop the guilty) – mystery inserted in the show Scacco matto (see below) as a quiz (the contenders have to guess the solution). The 23 episodes have the same actors and the same location (a villa on the Como Lake), while characters and historical setting change every time.
  • Chiamata urbana urgente per il numero... (Urgent call for number...) – similar mix of mystery and quiz, inserted in Domenica in, with Nando Gazzolo and Erica Bonaccorti.
  • Pronto emergenza (Hallo emergence) – by Marcello Baldi; adventure serial about an air rescue team, realized in collaboration with the Italian Armed Forces.
  • Ora zero e dintorni (Hour zero and surroundings) – sci-fi serial, set after a nuclear war, directed by Andrea Ferreri and Lucio Gaudino, aired on the Roman television Quintarete; in 13 episodes, each 14 minutes long. To be remembered as the first Italian fiction produced by a private editor.

Variety

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News and educational

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  • Versilia: gente del marmo e del mare (Versilia: people of the marble and the sea) – documentary by Ansano Giannarelli.
  • Nel cosmo alla ricerca della vita (In the cosmos, looking for life) – program of popular science by Piero Angela, about the possible existence of the extraterrestrial life.
  • Viaggio sentimentale nell’Italia dei vini (Sentimental journey in the wines’ Italy) – reportage by Luigi Veronelli; 4 episodes.[23]
  • Il gioco del teatro (The game of theatre) – by Carlo Tuzii, with Vittorio Gassmann and his disciples of the “Theatre store” in Florence.[24]

Ending this year

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  • Il dirigibile
  • Saperne di più
  • Odeon
  • Un peu d'amour, d'amitié et beaucoup de musique

Deaths

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References

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  1. ^ "Olimpia Carlisi e Roberto Benigni in "Festival di Sanremo del 1980" -". Rai Teche (in Italian). 2013-07-10. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  2. ^ a b c d Bruno, Somalvico (25 October 2012). "cronologia radiotelevisiva III: 1976-1992: 1980-1985". cronologia radiotelevisiva III. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  3. ^ "Auditel Rewind - 1980". TvBlog (in Italian). 2010-08-21. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  4. ^ "2 agosto 1980: la strage di Bologna -". Rai Teche (in Italian). 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  5. ^ "1980 La terra trema". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  6. ^ Emanuelli, Massimo (2017-08-28). "Net (Nuova Emittenza Televisiva)". MASSIMO EMANUELLI (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  7. ^ "Calcio e diritti tv, 40 anni fa la rivoluzione di Berlusconi con il Mundialito in Uruguay". Blasting News (in Italian). 2020-05-27. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  8. ^ Emanuelli, Massimo (2017-11-24). "Pin Prima Rete Indipendente". MASSIMO EMANUELLI (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  9. ^ "Il fascino dell'insolito". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  10. ^ "Popcorn". Mediaset Play. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  11. ^ "Mixer - Faccia a faccia". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  12. ^ "Il processo del lunedì, l'invenzione di Aldo Biscardi -". Rai Teche (in Italian). 2017-10-09. Archived from the original on 2020-08-03. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  13. ^ "Il ritorno di Casanova". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  14. ^ "Francis Durbridge e la RAI - Poco a poco". vicolostretto.net. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  15. ^ "L'eredità della priora". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  16. ^ In the same year 1980, the traditionally prudish RAI shows also the full frontals of Carola Stagnaro (in Fraulein Else) and Stefania Sandrelli (in Earth spirit).
  17. ^ "Cristo si è fermato a Eboli". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  18. ^ "Tre operai". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  19. ^ "A tutto gag". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  20. ^ "C'era due volte". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-07-17.
  21. ^ "Giochiamo al varieté". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  22. ^ "Saltimbanchi si muore". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  23. ^ "Viaggio sentimentale nell'Italia dei vini". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  24. ^ "Il gioco del teatro". RaiPlay (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-07-17.