1954 in Italian television

Events

• 3 January. After five years of experimentation, the speaker announces from the Milan studios, the official beginning of the TV broadcasting on Italy. This is the schedule of the day:

• 26 January. The first Italian teleplay, La Domenica di un fidanzato is aired.
• 29 January. First live broadcast of a football match and Nicolò Carosio, historical voice of the sport on radio. In June, the 1954 football world cup is the first major sport event followed by the Italian television.
• January–March: The RAI publishes its “TV self-discipline code”, inspired by the moral criteria of the Centro cattolico Cinematografico.
• 28 February. First live broadcast of a current event.
• 26 March: First political debate, about the taxman, with the ministers Ezio Vanoni and Roberto Tremelloni.
• 10 April. RAI changes its business name from Radio Audizioni Italiane to Radio Televisione Italiana.
• 18 April: For Easter, RAI broadcasts the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing of Pope Pius XII, who is the first pope to appear on TV.
• 23 April. First opera realized in the studio, directed by Franco Enriquez.
• 3 June. The Catholic Filiberto Guala is appointed RAI's Delegate Manager. His most important choice is the assumption, after a formative course, of three hundred young intellectuals to balance the influence of the ancient managers. Among the “white corsairs”, there are people with a brilliant future, like Umberto Eco, Gianni Vattimo, Furio Colombo, Piero Angela and Andrea Camilleri.
• 6 June. RAI takes part to the Eurovision’s birth. Immediately after the opening show, the Italian TV broadcasts for the whole Europe a speech by Pope Pius XII.
• 16 November. The first Italian miniseries, Il dottor Antonio is aired.
• 10 December. The fee for televisions is instituted. At the end of the year, the subscribers include 88,000 locations. Most of these TV tubes are located in public places, because of the high price of both the fee and the TV sets.

Debuts

• Un, due, tre – variety, directed by Mario Landi, lasted for six seasons. It is conceived as a parade of international stars, but soon the comic duo Ugo Tognazzi and Raimondo Vianello wins the audience's attention and becomes the focus of the show. Some of their sketches caricaturing other TV shows; as Mario Soldati's Travel in the Po valley, looking for genuine foods or the enquiry The working woman are very popular today again. After five years of huge critic and public success, the show is roughly suppressed, because of a sketch where the duo, using the freedom of the live broadcast, politely mocked the president Giovanni Gronchi.
• Una risposta per voi – educational program, lasted 13 seasons. The university professor Alessandro Cutolo answers to the letters of the viewers on every subject.
• Passaporto - course of English language for the young ones, care of Jole Giannini; 800 episodes.

Television shows

Miniseries

Drama

• Il ventaglio – by Carlo Goldoni, directed by Franco Enriquez and Carlo Lodovici.Right You Are (if you think so) by Luigi Pirandello, directed by Mario Landi, with Ubaldo Lay.

• Delitto e castigo – from the Dostoevsky’s novel, directed by Franco Enriquez, with Bianca Toccafondi.
• Come le foglie – by Giuseppe Giacosa, by Mario Ferrero, with Anna Miserocchi and Ivo Garrani; the moral collapse of a high-class family after the bankruptcy of his father. Romeo and Juliet – by Shakespeare, directed by Franco Enriquez, with Vira Silenti, and Leonardo Cortese.

Variety

Educational

Births

• 1 October - Milly Carlucci. television presenter
• 17 October - Daniela Poggi, actress and television presenter