Canale 5


Canale 5 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned by Mediaset. In 1980, it became the first private television network to achieve national coverage in Italy. The channel is aimed mainly at an adult audience and its programming is geared towards entertainment, including movies and TV series.

History

1970s

In 1974, Giacomo Properzj and Alceo Moretti founded the private cable television station Telemilanocavo in a suburb of Milan. It began cable transmission on 24 September, following a verdict of the Constitutional Court of Italy in July of that year, which liberalised regulations pertaining to this type of television broadcasting. Approximately 5,000 households were connected to the cable system, which corresponded to about 20,000 viewers.
In 1976, the Constitutional Court further liberalised broadcasting regulations, allowing for terrestrial broadcasting. The competition from the new terrestrial channels led to a fall in revenues for Telemilanocavo, causing the owners to sell the station in 1976 for the symbolic price of one lira to a company belonging to the Berlusconi group.
The new owners moved the studios to the Palazzo dei Cigni and changed the channel name to Telemilano 58. 58 was the UHF frequency that the channel was broadcast over. It was previously used by TVI Television International of Milan, which Berlusconi had purchased. Further investments in technology were made with the help of Adriano Galliani, an entrepreneur who specialised in television equipment. The 1979-1980 season led to the popularity of the station, with programmes hosted by well-known presenters like Mike Bongiorno, Claudio Lippi, Claudio Cecchetto and I Gatti di Vicolo Miracoli, among others.
On 23 February 1979, the trademark Canale 5 was registered in Milan. A few months later, on 12 November, the trademark Canale 5 Music S.r.l was also registered in the same city. The name was chosen by Berlusconi and Galliani "as a matter of euphony," as well as due to the broadcaster's national aspirations, which did not jibe with the fact of having "Milan" in the name. During this time, Berlusconi had acquired several local private broadcasters scattered throughout Italy, including the Fiat Group's Tele Torino International.

1980s

In January 1980, with a view to creating a national network, Berlusconi reached an agreement with 25 private broadcasters across the country, including those not owned by him, to broadcast the same programmes in the same time slots. The experiment officially began with the game show I sogni nel cassetto, hosted by Mike Bongiorno and produced by Reteitalia. This show, together with other Reteitalia productions, achieved a significant viewership thanks to the "pizzone" technique which allowed Reteitalia's shows to be broadcast nationwide. The technique consisted of recording the programmes on videocassettes, with the advertising already inserted, and distributing them via courier from the operations centre in Milan to the consortium of local private broadcasters distributed across the whole national territory. Thus began Canale 5's activities as an extra-regional broadcaster throughout northern Italy.
In the region of Lombardy, where the operations centre was located, programming ran throughout the day, while in other regions, it could only be broadcast in the late morning or in the evening due to the nature of the distribution of tapes. In central-southern Italy, meanwhile, Canale 5 initially went by the name Canale 10. However, on 11 November 1980, Canale 10 was officially replaced by Canale 5. The opening and closing theme of the programmes began with the song Rondò Veneziano by Gian Piero Reverberi, chosen by Berlusconi under the advice of Baby Records.
The first major sporting event broadcast by Canale 5 was the 1980 World Champions' Gold Cup, a football tournament in Uruguay which ran from 30 December 1980 to 10 January 1981. Reteitalia had initially secured the European television rights for the tournament, but they ultimately decided to sell them to RAI. In exchange for the sale, Reteitalia was allowed to broadcast the tournament, with a few exceptions for national matches and the final match. The matches were broadcast live in Lombardy and at a delay in the rest of the country, reaching 8million viewers.
In 1981, Canale 5 obtained legal recognition as a unitary circuit that broadcast over the following stations:
  • Telemilano 58 ;
  • Tele Emilia-Romagna ;
  • Tele Torino International ;
  • Video Adige ;
  • Video Veneto ;
  • A&G Television ;
  • Tele Toscana 1 and Teleamiata ;
  • Videoumbria ;
  • Roma TV ;
  • Sole TV ;
  • Ischia TV ;
  • Puglia TV ;
  • Tele Calabria 1 ;
  • TVR and Tele Monte Lauro ;
  • Sardegna TV.
In 1981, Hello Goggi, the first variety show produced by Fininvest, aired. The show was presented by Loretta Goggi, who was the first RAI personality to leave public TV to join Canale 5. However, the programme did not reach its anticipated ratings due to the network's inexperience in the production of variety shows and the lack of live coverage, then reserved for public and local broadcasters.
With the advent of the morning show Buongiorno Italia, presented by Marco Columbro and Antonella Vianini, Canale 5's scheduling was extended to the morning; previously, morning broadcasts had been restricted to Lombardy. In the evening, meanwhile, Canale 5 started broadcasting a news programme called Speciale Canale 5 - News, though it was not live. Also in 1981, Canale 5 bought the rights to broadcast the American soap opera Dallas, which, in the following years, was the subject of an "audience war" against rival show Dynasty, airing on their competitor network, Rete 4. In the early 1980s, Canale 5 also started using block programming, airing shows such as Pomeriggio Con Five and Okay, which featured a variety of cartoons from the United States, Europe and Japan. The afternoon schedule was filled with American series and soap operas, while quiz shows and game shows, such as Encore, hosted by Mike Bongiorno, ran in the morning. In addition, the network had 6,000 hours' worth of cinema in its warehouse.
Between 1980 and 1981, advertising revenues increased from 13 to 75 billion lire. From 1981 to 1983, it increased further to 110 billion, representing about 20% of the total share.
Between September and December 1981, the average daily audience was 1,400,000, equal to about 10% of the total audience. In 1983, the percentage rose to 13%.
In 1982, in the footsteps of Loretta Goggi and Mike Bongiorno, many other Italian television personalities from RAI signed a contract with Canale 5. Among them were Corrado Mantoni, who presented the new morning quiz show Il Pranzo è Servito, and the couple Sandra Mondaini and Raimondo Vianello, who presented the variety show Attenti a noi due.
In 1982, the Speciale Canale 5 - News segment changed its name to Canale 5 News and began to broadcast in the late evening. In 1983, the evening television audience amounted to over 8 million, equal to almost 30% of the total; in 1984, according to the ISTEL survey, it exceeded 9 million, equal to 33%. Among the successes of the period were the television series Dallas and miniseries The Thorn Birds, both attracting 15 million viewers each.
In 1982, Fininvest bought Italia 1 from Edilio Rusconi. Later, in 1984, it also took over former competitor Rete 4. Following this acquisition, some programmes first seen on Rete 4 moved to Canale 5, such as The Maurizio Costanzo Show, which would go on to be broadcast for over twenty years, and Nonsolomoda.
In October 1984, the National Independent Radio Association filed a complaint against Fininvest, claiming that it had violated the RAI monopoly law. As a result, the group's three networks, including Canale 5, were shut down in the Lazio, Abruzzo and Piedmont regions. However, the Craxi government intervened, issuing a decree later known as the Berlusconi Decree, which repealed the RAI monopoly law. In December 1984, following the blackout, new information-based programmes hosted by Arrigo Levi, Guglielmo Zucconi, Giorgio Bocca and Peter Nichols debuted.
In 1985, the two longest-running programmes on the Mediaset network, Buona Domenica and Forum, started airing.
On 14 January 1987, Canale 5 achieved a historic record, with the prime-time premiere of the film The Woman in Red reaching nearly 13 million viewers, or about 48% of the total audience share.

1990s

Following the of 1990, Canale 5 and other private national networks obtained permission to broadcast live. The first live broadcasts on the network were Cos'è cos'è, directed by Jocelyn Hattab, Non è la Rai, directed by Gianni Boncompagni and Buona Domenica. Overall, however, Canale 5's programming in the 1990s was similar to that of the previous decade.
Some programmes that aired on Italia 1 were promoted on Canale 5, such as Paperissima - Errori In TV and Scherzi A Parte. However, during this period, much of Canale 5's schedule was self-produced, including Ore 12, Stranamore, Beato Tra Le Donne and Tira & Molla.
There was no shortage of programmes for children and teenagers on Canale 5, such as Bim Bum Bam, broadcast from 1991 to 1997, which featured animated shows from the U.S. and Japan. In the 1993-94 season, A Tutto Disney replaced Bim Bum Bam on Saturday afternoons, offering classic Disney cartoons interspersed with segments and games presented by Irene Ferri and Riccardo Rossi. However, the programme was not very successful, and was eventually cancelled and replaced by Bim Bum Bam. Live-action children's TV series were also broadcast.
In April 1996, Fininvest's various television activities were consolidated under the Mediaset brand.