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1960 in Italian television

This is a list of Italian television related events of 1960.

Events

6 January: Joe Sentieri wins Canzonissima with Piove (Ciao, ciao bambina).
10 January: for the first time, RAI broadcasts a Serie A match (Bologna-Napoli, commentator Piero Pasini), also if delayed and limitedly to the second half. The “synthesis of the match”, aired in the late Sunday afternoon, becomes a ritual for the Italian football fans for almost forty years, until the advent of pay-tv.
30 January: the duo Renato Rascel and Tony Dallara wins the Sanremo Music Festival with Romantica. The show, presented by Paolo Ferrari and Enza Sampò, is seen in Eurovision by 30 million viewers.
13 July: the Constitutional Court of Italy, rejecting an appeal by the Roman editor Renato Angiolillo, establishes the lawfulness of the RAI monopoly of TV broadcasting and forbids the creation of private channels. However, the sentence obliges also RAI to grant the objectivity of the information and the access to the television of all the political forces.
21 August: at the Verona Arena, the presenter Mario Riva, who is going to lead the final evening of the Festival del Musichiere, falls in a not signaled trap door and is gravely injured. RAI does not give notice of the accident and the show goes regularly on air; the singer Miranda Martino is chosen at the last minute to replace the host. Riva, by then the most popular figure of the Italian television, dies ten days later at the Verona hospital; 250,000 persons follow his burial, the first of a TV star in Italy.
August 25-September 11: 1960 Summer Olympics, celebrated in Rome. For the first time in history, the Olympic Games are broadcast live. RAI shows itself equal to the occasion, employing an hundred workstations, 450 technicians and 17 commentators and producing 106 hours of airing in Mondovision.
October 11: for the 1960 Italian local elections, the first airing of the Electoral tribune, hosted by Gianni Granzotto. Exponents of every party answer to the journalists' questions; for the first time, the left and right opposition factions had access to the Italian television. The program is inaugurated by the Minister of Interior Mario Scelba who, despite his reputation as a reactionary, appears on video humorous and relaxed. The following day it is the turn of the DC secretary Aldo Moro. Moro appears rather uneasy with the new medium.
November 15: first airing of Non è mai troppo tardi, tutorial program aimed to the illiterates, care of the Ministry of Public Education and hosted by Alberto Manzi. Thanks to the “schoolmaster Manzi”s lessons, 35,000 adults get the Primary school diploma.

Debuts

Variety

Controcanale – hosted by Corrado Mantoni; with Abbe Lane; 2 seasons. A joke pronounced by the host (“Italy is a republic based on the promissory notes”, parody of the Italian constitution’s first article) causes political controversies and the temporary suspension of the show.

News and educational

Non è mai troppo tardi (It’s never too late”), with Alberto Manzi (see over); 8 seasons.

Tribuna elettorale (Electoral tribune) – see over.

Television shows

Drama

Tartarino di Tarascona (Tartarin of Tarascon) – from the Alphonse Daudet’s novel, by Vittorio Brignole, with Michele Malaspina; for children.

Miniseries

Ragazza mia (My girl) – from William Saroyan’s Mama, I love you, by Mario Landi, with Lea Padovani, Ivo Garrani and the baby star Maria Letizia Gazzoni; 4 episodes. The little daughter of an actress saves the marriage and the career of the mother.

Tutto da rifare pover’uomo (Lilltle man, it’s all gone) – from Hans Fallada’s Little man, what now?, by Eros Macchi, with Ferruccio De Ceresa and Carla Del Poggio; 5 episodes.

Period dramas

Il piccolo Lord (Little lord Fauntleroy) – from the Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel, by Vittorio Brignole, with the child actor Vittorio Pistolini; 4 episodes.
La Pisana – from Ippolito Nievo’s Confessions of an Italian, by Giacomo Vaccari, with Lydia Alfonsi, Giulio Bosetti and Gian Maria Volontè; 6 episodes. Realized as an homage to Nievo in the centenary of his death, the serials tells the tormented love story between a young patriot and his cousin, an unprejudiced noblewoman, with the Napoleonic wars in the background.
Tom Jones – from the Henry Fielding’s novel, by Eros Macchi, with Pino Colizzi; 6 episodes.
Vita col padre e con la madre – from Life with Father and Life with Mother, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, by Daniele D’Anza, with Paolo Stoppa and Rina Morelli.

Variety

Canzonissima 1960 – hosted by Alberto Lionello (who becomes very popular for his imitation of Maurice Chevalier), Lauretta Masiero and Aroldo Tieri; won by Tony Dallara with Romantica.

News and documentaries

La Sicilia del gattopardo (The Sicily of The leopard) – documentary by Ugo Gregoretti about Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and his world.
Chi legge? Viaggio lungo il Tirreno (Who reads? Travelling along the Tyrrhenian Sea) – reportage in 8 episodes by Mario Soldati (in collaboration with Cesare Zavattini); after a century, the writer retraces backward the itinerary of the Expedition of the thousands, from Marsala to Quarto, enquiring about the readings of the Italians.
Donne in cammino (Walking women) – documentary about history of feminism, by Ugo Gregoretti and Luciana Giambuzzi.
La nostra terra è l'acqua (Our land is water) - by Giorgio Moser, reportage about Indonesia.
Gli Italiani al Polo Nord (The Italians at the North Pole): enquiry in three episodes by Gianni Bisiach about the two Umberto Nobile’s polar expeditions.