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1988 in Italian television

This is a list of Italian television related events from 1988.

Events

Rai

  • 27 February: Massimo Ranieri wins the Sanremo Festival, hosted by Miguel Bosè and Gabriella Carlucci, with Perdere l’amore.
  • 6 May. On an episode of the magazine Telefono giallo, hosted by Corrado Augias, about the Itavia flight 870, an airman in service in Marsala on the day of the crash (whose identity has never been ascertained), phones on air and declares to have seen the radar tracks of the event, before they were hidden by the Italian Air Force.
  • 22 June: the Italy-USSR semi-final of UEFA Euro 1988 is the most watched program of the year, with 19 million viewers.
  • 20 June: RAI 2 broadcasts the last episode of Capitol, followed by a special, by film critic Claudio G. Fava, with interviews to actors, authors and Italian voice actors. The soap, abruptly interrupted due to its low ratings in America, still had an average of five million viewers in Italy.
  • 17 September: RAI broadcasts (late at night, due to the time difference) the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics. In the following two weeks, the state TV gives very ample space to the games (247 hours only on RAI 2). Yet, for the first time, it had to suffer competition from TMC and moreover from TV Capodistria, which for two weeks dedicates its entire programming to the event.
  • 27 December: a planned interview to Indro Montanelli on Domenica in is judged inappropriate and cancelled because the journalist is engaged in a controversy with Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita, whom he called “a godfather". Enrico Manca hoimself, RAI president, defines the act of censorship as "a macroscopic error".

Fininvest

  • 22 February: Silvio Berlusconi stops the airing of the satirical variety Matrjoska by Antonio Ricci. The censorship is motivated by the full frontals of Moana Pozzi, by a sketch judged too vulgar, with the extraterrestrial Scrondo, and by the filming of the Communion and Liberation choir, carried out without a written consent. Antonio Ricci presents his resignation from Fininvest, fast withdrawn. The program is broadcast, in a softer version and with the title The Arab Phoenix, two months later.
  • 20 June: the De Mita government approves the decree of the Minister of Communications Oscar Mammì regulating private television. A single television operator may not own more than three national channels. The planned “zero option”, prohibiting newspaper owners (such as Berlusconi) from also owning televisions, is instead set aside.
  • 14 July: the Constitutional Court recognizes the right of private networks to broadcast on a national scale; at the same time, it invites the legislator to regulate the matter and declares that the duopoly between a public and a private company does not guarantee pluralism.
  • 3 October: on Rete 4, Dentro la notizia, the first Finivest newscast, is aired; it is hosted by Rita Dalla Chiesa and Alessandro Cecchi Paone. The program can boast renowned collaborators, from Enrico Letta to Giorgio Bocca, from Enzo Bettiza to Gianni Brera, but is penalized by the lack of live broadcasting.

Other private channels

  • 18 February: birth of the syndication Cinque Stelle, presided by the Catholic priest and journalist Tommaso Mastrandea.
  • 1 May: birth of the syndication Supersix, presided by Gianni Ferrauto.
  • 21 May: birth of the national network Retemia, with seat in Lucca and owned by the financier and former telemarketer Giorgio Mendella.  It dedicates 13 hours a day to teleshopping and promoting of financial investments, the rest to entertainment and information (care of Ruggero Orlando).

Awards

5. Telegatto Award, for the season 1987–1988.

Debuts

RAI

Variety

  • Mezzanotte e dintorni (Round midnight) – night talk show, hosted by Gigi Marzullo; again on air. Despite the irony of the critics for its alleged banality, it has got 38 editions and 4 spin-offs.
  • La tv delle ragazze (Girls TV) – satirical variety, hosted by Serena Dandini, written, directed and interpreted exclusively by women (save two male actors in minor roles); 2 seasons. It launches several comic actresses, as Monica Scattini and Angela Finocchiaro.
  • Europa Europa – variety with Farizio Frizzi and Elisabetta Gardini, aimed to propagandize the European Union; 3 seasons.
  • Videocomic – anthology of comic sketches from the RAI archives, care of Nicoletta Leggeri, lasted till 2021.
  • Buona fortuna (Good luck) – talent show for amateur, with Elisabetta Gardini and then Claudio Lippi; 2 seasons.
  • Cocco – summer show hosted by Gabriella Carlucci; 2 seasons.
  • Conto su di te (I trust you) – game show hosted by Jocelyn Hattab; 2 seasons.
  • Notte rock (Rock night) – music magazine, care of Cesare Pierleoni; lasted till 1994.

News and educational

  • Schegge (Splinters) – anthology of excerpts from the RAI archive, care of Enrico Ghezzi and Marco Giusti, lasted till 1995.
  • Fuori orario (After hours. [Un]seen things) – care of Enrico Ghezzi ; again on air. Initially it’s a cultural talk-show with an experimental formula. From the second season it becomes the night space of Rai 3 dedicated to auteur cinema; the presentations of films by Ghezzi become infamous, for their cryptic and abstruse language.
  • Alla ricerca dell’arca (Looking for the ark) – adventure and travels magazine, hosted by Mino Damato; 3 seasons.
  • Publimania – night anthology of advertising from the world ; 4 seasons.
  • Videobox (or Spettabile RAI) – program of letters from the public to RAI, videorecorded at the Rizzoli bookstore in Milan; 2 seasons.
  • TG 2 motori – magazine about cars; again on air.

For children

  • Big – segmented show with cartoons, games and magazines, included a news program for the youngest ones; 7 seasons.

Mediaset

Serials

  • Casa Vianello (Vianello house) – sitcom with Raimondo Vianello and Sandra Mondaini; 16 seasons. The two actors play themselves, as two aged spouses, deeply united despite their perennial quarrels and his amorous adventures.
  • Don Tonino – detective comedy with Gigi e Andrea as a funny couple of investigators (a policeman and a priest); 2 seasons.

Variety

  • Striscia la notizia (The news crawls) – satirical news program, ideated by Antonio Ricci and again on air; irreverent comical sketches, played in studio by two fake news readers, alternate with more serious reportages about social issues. The show gets, for decades, the greatest audience in the Italian television and has got by the critics praises, but also charges of demagogy and sexism, for the intensive use of girls in sexy suits (the “velinas”). Among the many hosts of the program, the most successful had been the couple Ezio Greggio-Enzo Iachetti, while its most popular reporter is the puppet Gabibbo.
  • Dibattito! – parodistic talk-show, hosted by Gianni Ippoliti, whose guests are, willingly, average people without any competence about the matters debated, 2 seasons.
  • Il gioco dei nove – game show, Italian version of Holywood Squares, hosted by Raimondo Vianello, later by Gerry Scotti; 5 seasons.
  • Cari genitori (Dear parents) – game show with Enrica Bomnaccorti and then Sandra Milo, applying the format of The Newlywed Game to couple of parents and sons; 4 seasons.

Other channels

  • TV Donna – interstitial program, hosted by Carla Urban; lasted till 1993 (TMC).
  • WIP – World inportant person – magazine hosted by Andra Michelozzi, that includes interviews to international personalities as Helmut Kohl and George H- W. Bush; lasted till 1990 (Retemia).

International

Television shows

RAI

Drama

Comedy

  • Piazza Navona – cycle of 6 comedy TV-movies, realized by 6 debuting directors (Ricky Tognazzi among others) and produced and supervised by Ettore Scola; every episode takes place in the Roman square over the course of a day and includes a cameo of Marcello Mastroianni as himself.
  • … e non se ne vogliono andare (They don’t want to leave home) – family comedy by Giorgio Capitani, with Turi Ferro and Virna Lisi as an aged couple with three sons, adult but clingy to the family. The movie gets grat public success and a sequel.
  • Un milione di miliardi (A million of billions) by Gianfranco Albano, with Johnny Dorelli; a divorced father meets his son for the first time; coproduced with Germany.

Miniseries

Serial

Variety

Quiz and game show
  • Complimenti per la trasmissione (Congratulations for the show) – game show with Piero Chiambretti (at his debut as host of a complete program). A RAI troupe breaks live in the house of an average family and subjects it to various tests; however, the games are just a pretext to show the reactions of the ordinary people to the TV cameras. ÂÂ
  • Argento e oro (Silver and gold) - quiz about Twentieth Century history, hosted by Luciano Rispoli.
  • Domani sposi (Tomorrow married) – game show, hosted by Giancarlo Magalli, with couples of betrothed as contenders.

News and educational

  • Il testimone (Witness) with Giuliano Ferrara. The program inaugurates in Italy a new formula of TV journalism, with strong elements of infotainment and explicitly partisan (Ferrara is a declared supporter of Bettino Craxi's PSI).
  • Io confesso – reality show directed by Paolo Pietrangeli and hosted by Enza Sampò; an anonymous person, the face hidden by a Plexiglas window, reveals his most private secrets.
  • A proposito di Roma (About Rome) – by Egidio Eronico, documentary about the urbanistic history of the Italian capital the second afterwar; 3 episodes.

Mediaset

Drama

In 1988, Fininvest began to produce, alongside light comedies, also more ambitious fiction, entrusted to prestigious directors.

Miniseries

Serials

Variety

Ending this year

  • Buongiorno Italia
  • Cabaret per una notte
  • Chi tiriamo in ballo?
  • Drive in
  • G. B. Show
  • Jeans
  • Mare contro mare
  • Il miliardario
  • Porto matto
  • Tivù tivù

Deaths

See also

References