Special report · 1981
Les 20 canaux italiens
(Italy's twenty channels)
March 1981: sitting in front of a television set, I zapped to show French viewers something they had yet to experience: the jungle of Italian private television.
In 1981 a French viewer had a choice of three channels, all of them public. On the other side of the Alps it was another planet. Ever since a 1976 ruling by the Italian Constitutional Court had ended RAI's monopoly over local broadcasting, hundreds of private stations had sprung up, with no rules and no overall plan.
How do you get that across in three minutes? I chose to demonstrate by example. I sat down in front of a set, in Italy, and zapped. One channel, then another, then yet another: I listed them, and the viewer watched this anarchic proliferation roll by. The report was called "Les 20 canaux italiens" and went out on TF1's eight o'clock news on 14 March 1981.
A foretaste of the future
Among those channels were those of a Milanese entrepreneur still little known in France, Silvio Berlusconi, who was busy building an empire. In my personal archives, a folder from those years actually bears the name: "Berlusconi's TV stations".
I did not know I was filming our future. Three years later Canal+ was born, then La Cinq and TV6 in 1986, and in 1987 TF1 itself was privatised. What I showed that evening as an Italian curiosity was about to become the French broadcasting landscape.
Key facts
- Broadcast on 14 March 1981 on TF1's eight o'clock news.
- Running time: 3 min 07.
- 1976: the Italian Constitutional Court opens the way for local private television.