Sunday 03 January 1954 at hours 11 were being forwarded, for the first time, the RAI broadcasts. National Program was opened or first program, that is the current Rai 1. The first program after the opening ceremony aired at 14:30, and was "arrivals and departures" conducted by the then very young Italian-American presenter Mike Bongiorno.
The broadcasts originally lasted a few hours a day, and of course not everyone could afford to buy a television set immediately. The cost of a television at the time was up to five times the average per capita annual income, and it was so common, in the evening, gather a group of people at the bar or at a friend's House to see together your favorite program, among all the quiz "double or nothing" born in ' 55.
In 1954 Subscribers to the TV were 24 thousand people: This number grew quickly, and already in 1965 were 6 million people who had a television at home.
What has been the television for the Italians at that time? Definitely a window on the world, the first opportunity to know reality other than its own and things that I had never even imagine. But still, television has been a historic social phenomenon, a radical change in the habits of Italians, such that it is not easy to define if these changes the television was cause or effect.
It is claimed that it was the television to be the true unification of Italy, a century later the political unit, and at least at the linguistic level this is definitely true. However, today, remains the doubt that television, as well as countless other instruments at our disposal for communication and connection, they have instead contributed to the isolation of people in contemporary society and the phenomenon of individualism.
Maria
