Commercial television: origins and effects on Italian society

Abstract

Television was one of the greatest innovations of the last century. In Italy, it became popular in 1954, when black and white RAI’s programs officially started. Initially, it played an educational role: audience followed the programmes to recover school deficiencies or cultural underdevelopment. However, in short time, it became the most important communication instrument and the main source of news and shared knowledge. In the ‘70s, the rise of commercial TV not only brought the classical pedagogical model into a crisis, but also reflected the changes of the Italian culture of that time. Those people that every evening waited for Carosello were then overwhelmed by a hedonistic and not censored way to transmit, typical of Silvio Berlusconi’s network. In 1980, his Telemilano changed name in Canale 5 and started broadcasting nationally. Canale 5 was then accompanied by Italia 1 (1982) and Retequattro (1984), gaining to the network the conformation known today. Berlusconi and his commercial TV understood that what was really important was not to sell programmes, but audience: audience in terms of contacts able to receive and interpret ads, lifeblood of commercial television. So, while on the one hand, commercial TV, by targeting its audience (according to age, genre, educational level, …), offered the right spaces to advertisers, on the other hand, society adapted and reacted to the situation buying those unnecessary products seen on TV. However, being society a constantly-evolving entity, television had to adapt to it, varying its programs and messages. Thus, commercial television, in a duopolistic competition, imposed its model on the public service, changing not only society, but also the way to do television itself.