Rai turns 70
“Rai – Italian Radio and Television – begins its regular television broadcast service today“, with this direct and effective sentence, the announcer Fulvia Colombo communicated to the viewers the start of the National Program (now Rai 1), which has accompanied the lives of Italians ever since and to this day. It was January 3, 1954, it was 11:00 am.
On that Sunday there were only 90 subscribers, but in a month they became 24 thousand. It was an Italy where a television cost as much as three employee salaries, 250 thousand lire.
At the end of the year, 88 thousand Italians paid the fee of 15 thousand lire, with the signal reaching 58% of the population. Not everyone could afford a television: we found ourselves in bars, public places or the homes of wealthier neighbors, for a sharing that would make the small screen increasingly popular.
Sport on RAI
At 11:00 on January 3rd the inauguration broadcast was broadcast from the offices of Milan, Rome and Turin, while At 3.45pm the Sports Afternoon started, a sign of a deep bond between RAI and sport. Also in 1954 the first football World Cup was broadcast, in 1956 the first Winter Olympics.
And Formula 1?
Many will wonder which was the first Formula 1 Grand Prix broadcast by RAI. The answer is surprising: the 1953 Monza Italian GP. Four months before the official start of the national programs.
The explanation is simple: RAI had been carrying out tests for 18 months to prepare the entire system, so much so that the first experimental news program dates back to 10 September 1952, from the Milan office.
On 13 September 1953 the then experimental RAI channel connected with the Monza route at 2.30pm, to follow the live commentary of the departure and the start of the race. At 4.10pm new insert dedicated to the progress of the central phase of the grand prix and at 4.30pm the grand finale, again live. The winner was Juan Manuel Fangio in a Maserati, followed by Nino Farina and Luigi Villoresi in a Ferrari. Great disappointment for Alberto Ascari, on Ferrari, who started on pole and led the 79th of the 80 scheduled laps: at the Curva Sud the Milanese lost control of his Rossa during a lapping, ending up in a spin.
The reporter was Piero Casucci and already in the early 1960s full coverage of events began, including the Italian and Monaco GPs. RAI maintained exclusive rights to Formula 1 until 1991 (but Telemontecarlo, which had the status of foreign TV but was usable in much of Italy, overlapped between 1987 and 1990). The Mammì law subsequently changed the regulatory framework and Fininvest and Telepiù purchased the rights to some races and in 2003 Sky Sport satellite TV was added.
RAI's gradual exit from the scene began in 2013, when the alternation between live and deferred broadcasts began, and definitively materialized in 2018. Since 2013, live viewing of the Formula 1 World Championship in Italy has become pay-TV. Sky Sport purchases the rights and broadcasts deferred and some live broadcasts on its free-to-air televisions, first Cielo and now TV8. To date, the last grand prix broadcast by RAI is the 2018 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, won by Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen on Ferrari. A Silver Arrow preceding a Red in Monza, just like that first GP broadcast in 1953.
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