1979 in Italian television

• 22 February. Sentence of the Catanzaro trial, for the Piazza Fontana bombing; the hearings have been, for the first time, integrally shoot  by the RAI cameras. From 25 September, a selection in five episodes  of the proceedings is aired, showing to the public the embarrassed and reticent depositions of politicians as Giulio Andreotti and Mariano Rumor.[1]
• 26 April. The documentary Trial for rape, realized by a feminist collective, shocks the public opinion, showing the victim of a ravishment humiliated and criminalized by the defense attorneys.[2]
• 15 December. The adolescent actress Fabiana Udenio announces the beginning of RETE 3 broadcasting. This is the schedule of the first day.

Rete 3 is, in the intents, focused on the local realities, with programs and news realized by the RAI regional offices; however, for years it will be a “ghost channel”, lacking of means and ignored by the public.[3]

In 1979, the  Italian private televisions have a breakthrough: the most active buy massively films and American telefilms, hire RAI stars as Mike Bongiorno and Pippo Baudo and begin to broadcast in National scope (the rule forcing them to operate only locally is bypassed, airing on several local stations  the same show, prerecorded on videotape). Particularly  dynamic is the Silvio Berlusconi’s  Telemilano 58.

• 4 March: TV Port, syndication of 90 local channels, specialized in  American film and telefilm.[4]
• 19 June: Antenna Sicilia, owned by the newspaper editor Mario Cancio Sanfilippo, art director Pippo Baudo
• July: Rete televisiva Italiana, owned by Il Messaggero's editor Carlo Perrone.[5]
• 2 July : Compagnia televisioni Associate; syndication of 20  local channels.[6]
• Autunni : TV Parma[5]
• 8 September. GPE-Telemond, by Arnoldo Mondadori editore,  later fused with Rete televisiva Italiana in Rete 4.[7]

• 30 January: Silvio Berlusconi founds Rete Italia, society for the marketing of TV shows. The newborn society gets right away a big deal, buoying 325 movies from Titanus for 2 billion liras.
• 13 September : Birth of Publitalia, the Berlusconi’s advertising media agency.
• December. Telemilano 58, till then visible only in Milan, extends its signal to the whole Lombardy.[5]
• 5 December. Mike Bongiorno debuts on Silvio Berlusconi’s Telemilano 58 with the game show The dreams in the weaver; he’s the first TV star who leaves RAI to work full-time for a private network. The collaboration between Bongiorno and the public company, lasted 27 years, has got into crisis few months before with an unsuccessful remake of Lascia o raddoppia?

• 3,2,1… contatto – show for children, inspired by the homonymous PBS program; 2 season. It sees the debut of Paolo Bonolis.
• Fantastico (Fantastic) – show of the Saturday evening, aired in autumn and bound to the Lotteria Italia. In the Eighties, as Canzonissima in the Sixties, is the most viewied RAI show and causes also political controversies. The first edition, directed by Enzo Trapani and hosted by Beppe Grillo, Loretta Goggi and Heather Parisi, gets an audience of 23, 600 million viewiers.[8]
• Storia di un italiano (History of an Italian) – history of the modern Italy through an anthology of the Alberto Sordi’s movies – 4 seasons.
• TG3 settimanale (Weekly TG3) - magazine

• Ciao ciao (Hello hello) –cartoon show; started on the Mondadori’s Telenord, it becomes later one of the most popular show for children of the Fininvest network, lasted for 32 seasons.
• I sogni nel cassetto (Dreams in the drawer) – game show, hosted by Mike Bongiorno (Telemilano 58) – 2 seasons.
• Telemattina (TV morning) – with Ettore Andenna, first European show aired in the morning (Antenna 3) – 2 seasons.
• Telemenù – cooking show, with Wilma De Angelis (Telemontecarlo) – 18 seasons.
• VG21 news (Canale 21)

• La promessa (The promise) – by Alberto Negrin, with Rossano Brazzi; from Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The pledge.
• Rocco Scotellaro – by Maurizio Scaparro, with Bruno Cirino; the true story of Rocco Scotellaro, poet, socialist militant and major of his village.
• Profumo di classe (Classy perfume)  - by Giorgio Capitani, with Ombretta Colli and Aldo Maccione; musical inspired by Pygmalion, but with inverted gender roles (here, it’s a female teacher to educate a tramp).
• The tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermanno Olmi and Orchestra reharsal[9] by Federico Fellini (both previously distributed in the cinemas).

• Cinema! – by Pupi Avati, with Lino Capolicchio, in 5 episodes; follow-up of Jazz Band, it fictionalizes the adventurous Avati’s debut as movie director.
• Ma che cos’è questo amore? (This love, what is it?) – by Ugo Gregoretti, in 2 episodes, with Stefano Satta Flores and Roberto Benigni, from the Achille Campanile’s humoristic novel; the slap of a woman to an intrusive suitor has the most unpredictable and absurd consequences.

Among the foreign productions, the hit of the year is the American Holocaust.

• Accadde ad Ankara (It happened in Ankara) – by Mario Landi, in 3 episodes; reconstruction of the “Cicero affair” with Stefano Satta Flores as Elyesa Bazna.
• Bel Ami – by Sandro Bolchi, with Corrado Pani, in 4 episodes; from the Guy de Maupassant’s novel.
• Che fare? (What is to be done?) – by Gianni Serra, with Elisabetta Pozzi and Remo Girone, in 5 episodes; from the Nikolaj Gavrilovič Černyševskij’s novel.
• Il delitto Notarbatolo (The Notarbartolo affair) – by Alberto Negrin, in 3 episodes, with Ivo Garrani; reconstruction of the first clamorous Mafia crime, happened 1n 1893.
• La commediante veneziana (The venetian actress) – by Savatore Nocita, in 5 episodes, from the Raffaello Calzini’s novel; the life of the actress Teodora Ricci, lover of Carlo Gozzi.
• I vecchi e I giovani (The old and the young ones) – by Marco Leto, with Gabriele Ferzetti and Alain Cuny, in 5 episodes; from the Luigi Pirandello’s novel. In the Sicilia of the late Nineteenth century, the “old generation” (the Risorgimento men, by now corrupted or disillusioned) face the “young people” (the socialists of the Fasci Siciliani).[10]
• Martin Eden – by Giacomo Battiato, with Christopher Connelly, in 5 episodes, from the Jack London’s novel.

• Così per gioco (Just a game) – by Leonardo Cortese, in 5 episodes, with Mariano Rigillo; mystery set in the world of the gamble.
• Luigi Ganna detective – by Maurizio Ponzi, in 4 episodes, with Luigi Pistilli; the adventures of a Milan private eye.[11]
• La vedova e il piedipiatti (The widow and the cop) – comic-mistery serial, by Mario Landi, in 6 episodes; with Ave Ninchi and Veronica Lario

• Racconti di fantascienza (SF tales) – by Alessandro Blasetti (in the last direction of a fifty years career), in 3 episodes, with Arnoldo Foà as the teller.
• I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan Poe’s fantastic tales) – by Daniele D’Anza, in 4 episodes, with Philippe Leroy as Roderick Usher. The classical horror stories of the American writer are transferred in the USA of the Twentieth Century.[12]

• Made in England - reportage about England, by Enzo Biagi, in 12 episodes.[13]
• Il cuore della Jugoslavia è fatto di mulini (Yugoslavia's heart is made by mills) - reportage by Tonino Guerra, in 3 episodes.[14]

• C’era una volta Roma (Once upon a time in Rome) – with the Bagaglino troupe; parodic history of the Italian capital.
• Carissimi, la nebbia agli irti colli (Dearest, the fog at the steep hills) – first variety aired on Rai 3.[15]
• Due come noi (Two people like us) – by Antonello Falqui, with Pino Caruso and Ornella Vanoni.
• Grand’Italia– talk show, hosted by Maurizio Costanzo.
• Luna park – hosted by Pippo Baudo, with Tina Turner as constant guest; debut of Heather Parisi.[16]
• Tilt – with Stefania Rotolo.
• Una valigia tutta blu (A fully blue bag) – musical show, hosted by Walter Chiari.

• Il Napoleone – game show, with Ettore Andenna, directed by Cino Tortorella (Antenna 3 Lombardia)
• Ottava nota – music show, with Richard Benson (TVA 40).