1976 in Italian television
This is a list of Italian television related events from 1976.
Events
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.The RAI reform
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: TG1, directed by the Catholic Emilio Rossi, and TG2, directed by the socialist Andrea Barbato. Similar changes are performed in the radio sector. The reform makes RAI more pluralist and less censored, but accentuates too the spoils system.25 October. New schedule of the RAI programs; RAI Due gets the same broadcasting time as Rai Uno 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.15 December. In Lombardy, the first regional broadcastings by RAI begin.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.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. 7 December: for the first time, RAI broadcasts the Premiere at La Scala ;'' the show is in color. Outside the theatre, a battle between police and protesters is fought. 30 December: the Economic Programming Committee chose definitively the PAL system for the color broadcastings.The private channels
- Telemontecarlo opens a studio in Milan, where the first Italian private news program is recorded.June 9: TeleAppula, one of the first Italian private channels on air, begins to broadcast from the Mercadante theatre in Altamura.June 25: A sentence of the Constitutional court allows to the private radio and TV stations to broadcast "not exceeding the local area". Summer. After the Court's sentence, birth of other private channels: RTP in Messina. Telemilano in Milan, Teleroma, Quinta Rete and GBR, the first to broadcast in color, in Rome.. 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.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.
- - ''Kojak''
Variety
L’altra domenica – 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 – 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? – quiz inspired by the horse racing, hosted by Mike Bongiorno, who comes back in RAI after a two years "exile" at the Swiss TV.News and educational
On Rai Uno debut, for the Friuli earthquake, of the magazine Speciale TG1. The empowered Rai Due gets, beyond its news, its magazine, its sport magazine and its weather program.Almanacco del giorno dopo – magazine of petty culture.TG l’una, quasi un rotocalco per la domenica – talk show with reportages, broadcast on Rai Uno the Sunday at the lunch hour.Bontà loro – first Italian talk-show, hosted by Maurizio Costanzo, on RAI Uno the Monday late evening. The show is a novity 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 – magazine about show business by Brando Giordani and Emilio Ravel, famous for having broken the RAI taboo about female nakedness.Television shows
Drama
Tosca – by Giancarlo De Bosio, with Plácido Domingo; TV version of the Puccini's opera, shot in Rome, on the real places of the action.Rosso veneziano – by Marco Leto, from the Pier Paolo Pasinetti's novel, with Gastone Moschin, Carlo Hintermann, Pier Paolo Capponi and Elisabetta Pozzi; 2 episodes. The intricate story of two Venetian families on the eve of the Second World War.Bettina - by Luca Ronconi, from Carlo Goldoni's La putta onorata and La buona moglie, with Michela Martini, Bruno Zanin and Renzo Montagnani.Bipics
La città del sole – by Gianni Amelio, with Giulio Brogi as Tommaso Campanella,Ambrogio di Milano - by Gianfranco Bettetini, with Giulio Brogi in the title role.Mayakovsky by Alberto Negrin, with Tito Schirinzi in the title role and Piera Degli Esposti as Lilya Brik.L’assassinio di Federico Garcia Lorca – by Alessandro Cane, with Roberto Bisacco in the title role.Miniseries
Camilla - in four episodes, by Sandro Bolchi, with Giulietta Masina, from Fausta Cialente's A very cold winter; the hardship of a Milan family in the first winter after the war..- Le cinque stagioni – in four episodes, by Gianni Amico, with Tino Carraro and Elsa Merlini; the life in a retirement home. Last role for the great character and voice actor Carletto Romano.
Period dramas
- Sandokan – in six episodes, by Sergio Sollima, with Kabir Bedi, Carole Andrè, Philippe Leroy and Adolfo Celi ; from Emilio Salgari's The tigers of Mompracem. The Salgari's escapist novel is interpreted by the director in a political and anti-colonialist key. The miniseries, shot on true locations, gets 27 million viewers by episode and is a social phenomenon, in spite of the cold judgments of the critics; the unknown Indian actor Kabir Bedi becomes a star and the title track a hit. It's considered the most successful fiction in RAI history and got, in the years, a cinematographic version and three sequels.
- Michel Strogoff – by Jean-Pierre Decourt, international coproduction from the Jules Verne's novel, that replies the Sandokan's success; the Italian actress Lorenza Guerrieri has the leading female role.
- Manon – by Sandro Bolchi, with Monica Guerritore and Paolo Bonacelli, from the Antoine Francois Prevost's novel.
- Paganini – biopic by Dante Guardamagna, with Tino Schirinzi in the title role, music for violin performed by Salvatore Accardo; 4 episodes.
- I 3 moschettieri – by Sandro Sequi, semi-parodic version of the Alexandre Dumas’ novel, with four actors playing all the roles; 15 episodes, for children.
Para-normal
La mia vita con Daniela '' – in two episodes; paranormal thriller by Domenico Campana, with Ivana MontiIl figlio di due madri - by Ottavio Spadaro, from Massimo Bontempelli's novel, with Giulia Lazzarini and Anna Maria Guarnieri; drama about reincanation.Extra'' – in two episodes, by Daniele D’Anza, with Vittorio Mezzogiorno; science-fiction miniseries, set in USA, about the alien abductions.Mystery
Origins of the Mafia – in five episodes, by Enzo Muzii, script by Leonardo Sciascia; history of the Mafia, from the sixteenth century to today, with an international cast. A casa, una sera... - in two episodes, by Mario Landi, with Nino Castelnuovo and Lia Tanzi; from Francis Durbridge's Suddenly at home.- Dimenticare Lisa – in three episodes, by Salvatore Nocita, with Ugo Pagliai; from Francis Durbridge's The doll, whose action is transferred in Naples.Aut-aut, cronaca di una rapina – in two episodes, by Silvio Maestranzi, with Gabriele Lavia; reconstruction of a crime story really happened in Denmark.Albert e l’uomo nero – by Dino B. Partesano, with Nando Gazzolo and Carlo Simoni; 3 episodes. A 9 years old kid is the only witness of his stepmother's murder.Dov’è Anna? – In seven episodes, by Piero Schivazappa, with Mariano Rigillo and Scilla Gabel. Anna, an ordinary middle-class woman, disappears; the investigations both by the police and by the husband and a friend of the missing, improvised detectives, reveal always new and unsuspected sides in Anna's secret life, till to a sad ending. The miniseries deals social question audacious for the time, as the market of the adoptions and the mental disease. The final episode gets an audience of 28 million viewers, absolute record for an Italian fiction.