This is adynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help byediting the page to add missing items, with references toreliable sources.
12 January: in an episode ofPorta a Porta, the two "Montecastrilli lovers" (a married woman and a teen-ager, protagonists of an elopement in Germany) tell their story toBruno Vespa, for a remuneration of 30 million liras. Despite the controversies, the show gets 5 million 266,000 viewers.[1]
17 February: Roberto Zaccaria and Pier Luigi Celli are elected, respectively, president and CEO of RAI.[2]
21–26 February:50th Sanremo Festival, hosted byFabio Fazio and won by the bandAvion Travel withSentimento; the final evening gets 18.699.000 viewers.Jovanotti performs, out of competition, the rapCancella il debito, addressed to the Prime MinisterMassimo D’Alema, and for this is charged of undue politic propaganda.[3]
23 June: end of the "kids TV", the afternoon space traditionally reserved byRai 1 to the youngest ones. The show for childrenSolletico is cancelled for low ratings and substituted by a program of gossip (La vita in diretta).
2 July.: TheUEFA Euro 2000 Final match between Italy and France teams gets the highest audience of the year, with 21.330.000 viewers and an 81.1% share.[4]
28 September: theTG1 broadcasts some crude images about the pedophilic traffic between Italy and Russia. Because the protests of right-wing politicians included the president of the RAI supervisory commission,Mario Landolfi, the directorGad Lerner (in charge for just three months) is forced to resign.[3]
1. October: on air, Gad Lerner confirmis his resignation; he admits his error but, in turn, accuses Landolfi to have solicited by a letter the hiring of a journalist. In place of Lerner, Albino Longhi becomes, for the third time, TG1 director.[3]
18 December: guest ofPorta a Porta,Silvio Berlusconi exposes his program of big public works, tracking on the map of Italy the designed infrastructures. The show arouses the usual controversies for the partiality of the host Bruno Vespa to the Italian right-wing leader.[5]
22 February: Thepar condicio law, ruling the political communication in TV, is approved: the televisions, public or private, must give equal space to every political subject; thepolitical ads and the presence in the variety shows of candidates in elections are forbidden. The law, intended moreover to limit the politic partiality of theMediaset televisions, is, for obvious reasons, harshly criticized bySilvio Berlusconi and thePole for Freedoms.[2]
14 September – TheItalian version ofBig Brother debuts. The show is aired, in anthological form, byCanale 5, and integrally, by the satellite platformStream and the Internet channel Jumpy. The 19, there is the first scandal: two contenders (Pietro Taricone and Cristina Pievani), hidden behind a sofa, have sexual intercourse with cameras on. In November, another contender, Marina La Rosa, just after leaving the seclusion, poses naked on thePanorama cover.[3]
12 October: aTG4 troupe films theRamallah lynching; the gruesome images go around the world. After a letter of the RAI correspondent Riccardo Cristiano toAl-Hayat al-Jadida, that attributes the footage to an Italian concurrent, Mediaset must withdraw its troupe from Jerusalem to avoid reprisals. Cristiano is, in his turn, disowned and recalled by RAI.[3]
21 December – Thefirst season ofGrande Fratello is won by Cristina Plevani; the moral winner, however, is the third classified, the culturist Pietro Taricone, who exploits the gained popularity to begin a career as actor. The last episode is seen by 18 million and a half viewers.[3]
February: on the satellite platform D+, birth of the channelNuvolari, focused on motorship.[4]
March:Rete A breaks the collaboration withMTV Italia and sign an agreement with the German musical channelVIVA. The 22 May MTV Italia transmigrates on TMC 2.
April:Rupert Murdoch gets the control of the satellite platformStream TV, ousting the Italian associates (Vittorio Cecchi Gori andTelecom Italia). In the year, Stream expands its offer, with the birth of new channels (National Geographic, Comedy Life,Fox Kids, Duel TV, Roma Channel) and broadcasts integrallyGrande fratello, with great public success. However, D+ maintains the primate in the field, with one million subscribers (the double of the Stream's ones).
June: Tele+ makes the first experimentalDTTV broadcastings in Italy, limited to the cities of La Spezia, Brescia and Palermo.[6]
6 August: Roberto Colanino, president ofTelecom Italia, buysTMC and TMC2 byVitttorio Cecchi Gori for one thousand billion liras and becomes the second tycoon of the private Italian television. The operation, that breaks the law about telecommunications, is sustained by theDemocrats of the Left and opposed by the Pole for Freedoms andItaly of Values.[3]
1 December:Retemia stops to broadcast; its frequenceis are given to the channel of home shopping H.O.T. (later, Home Shopping Europe).
Special awards:Trenta ore per la vita (for the service TV), Mrs. Emma Baratto (reader ofSorrisi e Canzoni),George Clooney (for the cinema in TV),James Coburn (lifetime achievement) and the Pediatric Association for the Children with AIDS.
Don Matteo – detective comedy, produced by Lux Vide; withTerence Hill as a country parish, amateurish detective,Nino Frassica andFlavio Insinna; 12 seasons (until now). The serial, light and imbued of good feelings, is, afterInspector Montalbano, the greatest success of the RAI fiction in the 2000s.[7]
Sospetti ("Suspicions") – by Luigi Perelli and Gianni Lepre, with Sebastiano Somma as the deputy attorney Luca Bartoli,Isabella Ferrari andRemo Girone; 3 seasons. The serial resumes the formula ofLa piovra (a solitary hero fights against the corruption of the society), transferred from Sicily to the intrigues of the North Italy upper class; the second season gets 9 million viewers for episode.
Libero ("Free!") – variety focused on the prank calls, hosted byTeo Mammuccari and others; 7 seasons. The show is charged of vulgarity and sexism for the use of the soubretteFlavia Vento, forced to stay constantly under a glass desk and repeatedly humiliated.[10]
Una voce per padre Pio ("A voice forPadre Pio") – benefit concert, broadcast every year from Santissima Annunziata square inPietralcina; again on air.
Affari di cuore ("Heart affairs") – reality show hosted byFederica Panicucci; 2 seasons. In every episode, the fidelity of an engaged couple is tried by two "tempters".
Novecento – mix of talk show, quiz and variety about the history of the Twentieth century, hosted byPippo Baudo; 6 seasons.
Easy driver – magazine about motors, again on air.[12]
Linea Bianca ("White line") – magazine about life in the mountains, again on air.[13]
Il raggio verde ("The green ray"), talk show, andSciuscià, magazine, both hosted byMichele Santoro. Because its leftist orientation,Sciuscià is closed after 2 seasons, at the express request of prime ministerSilvio Berlusconi who, the year before, had attacked Santoro with a clamorous phone-call on air during an episode ofIl raggio verde.
Stracult – magazine about Italian cinema, focused on the popular genres and theB-movies, care ofMarco Giusti; it includes also satirical sketches and parodic fictions; again on air.[14]
Ulisse, il piacere della scoperta ("Ulysses, the pleasure of discovering") – informative magazine about history, art and culture, hosted byAlberto Angela.[16]
Le ali della vita ("The wings of the life") by Stefano Reali; 2 seasons. The series tells, in the ways of an old-fashioned melodrama, the battle between a bigoted and scheming nun (Virna Lisi) and a free-spirited music teacher (Sabina Ferilli), fought first in a female college and then in an orphanage.[17]
Sei forte, maestro ("Teacher, you are great") comedy withEmilio Solfrizzi, Gaia De Laurentis andGastone Moschin; 2 seasons. A middle-aged man with a troubled family situation finds the serenity working as primary school teacher and the love in a colleague.[18]
C’è posta per te ("You"ve got mail") – people show hosted byMaria De Filippi; 21 seasons (till now), Italian record for such kind of program. The hostess organizes a reunion in studio between two persons (friends, former lovers, relatives) separated by life; the invitation letters to the show are delivered by actors dressed as postmen, sometimes VIP as the famous goalkeeperWalter Zenga. The format, also if ravaged by critics, has got a constant public success in Italy and has been largely imitated abroad.[21]
Celebrità ("Celebrities") – magazine about gossip, with Silvana Giacobini; 2 seasons.
Sipario del TG4 ("TG4 curtain") – magazine focused on gossip, ideated byEmilio Fede; on air till 2015.
Terra! ("Land!") – magazine of investigating journalism, directed by Toni Capuozzo, on air until 2017; it's considered the most professional among the Mediaset news programs.[24]
Sesso, parlano le donne (TMC) ("Women speak about sex") – talk-show bound to the serialSex and the City, hosted by Anna Pettinelli; 2 seasons.
Le battagliere ("The pugnacious women"), on theApulia channel Antenna Sud, andCatene (Chains), on the rival Telenorba – sit-coms inBari dialect, both characterized by black humor and grotesque social satire. They get a noticeable success with the local public and last, respectively, for 4 and 6 seasons.
The year of theGreat Jubilee is characterized, on the Italian little screen, by a spread, both in RAI and Mediaset, of religious fictions, often produced byEttore Bernabei's Lux Vide, usually naive and hagiographic products but appreciated by the large public.
I, Tigi, Canto per Ustica ("Song for Ustica") – monologue byMarco Paolini, played on the twentieth anniversary of theItavia Flight 870.[25]
Il furto del tesoro ("The robbery of the treasure") – by Alberto Sironi, withLuca Zingaretti, script by Laura Toscano; 2 parts. In the Twenties, a cunning inspector of the fascist police foils a heist to theS. Peter's Basilica.
La stanza della fotografia ("The room of the photo") – thriller about domestic violence by Antonio Bonifacio, withCinzia Monreale.
Vola, Sciuscìù ("Fly, Sciusciù") – byJoseph Sargent, withLino Banfi in his first dramatic role. InApulia, during theWorld War II, a mentally disable man becomes a hero saving three allied paratroopers.[26]
Il rumore dei ricordi ("The sound of memories") – by Paolo Poeti, from the Maria Venturi's novel, withElena Sofia Ricci and Marco Bonini; 2 parts. A free-spirited mature woman falls in love for a younger man.
Una storia qualunque ("A usual story") – by Alberto Simone, withNino Manfredi andAgnese Nano; 2 parts. After thirty years of undue prison, an aged man tries to clear his name and to recuperate a link with the sons.[27]
Un dono semplice ("A simple gift") byMaurizio Zaccaro, withF. Murray Abraham andVirna Lisi; a rampant businessman changes his values after his wife's death and the encounter with a nun, missionary in India.[29]
Come quando fuori piove (As when it's raining outside, meaningless sentence, used in Italy to remember thecard suits) – byMario Monicelli, withStefano Accorsi andFranca Valeri; 2 parts. The quiet life of the little townCittadella is upset by the chase to the winning lottery ticket, lost at a poker game.
Piovuto dal cielo ("Fell out of the sky") – by Josè Maria Sanchez, withLino Banfi,Ben Gazzara,Stefania Sandrelli andCristiana Capotondi; 2 parts. Two men, a janitor and a dentist, divided by the class differences and by sad family affairs, are forced to collaborate for sake of an abandoned child.[32]
Nebbia in Val Padana ("Fog in the Po Valley") – nonsense comedy byFelice Farina withCochi e Renato (reunited after 25 years of separation) as an improbable couple of private eyes.[33]
Vite bruciacchiate ("Scorched lives") – by Carlo Arturo Signon, withElio e le Storie Tese andRenzo Arbore; 4 episodes. The series, that tells the absurd adventures of an Italian rock band looking for success in the USA, was aired after midnight, with very low ratings, and no more replied or distributed in home video; despite its invisibility, in the years it has become a cult-object for the fans ofEELST.
Ricominciare ("Starting over") – first RAI soap-opera, set inPerugia, about the vicissitudes of two families (the publishers Vallesi and the middle-class Ruggeri). Aired daily, it's abruptly stopped after a single season for low ratings.
La Traviata à Paris – byGiuseppe Patroni-Griffi, with Eteri Gvazava andJosè Cura; theVerdi'sopera is broadcast live from the real places of the story in Paris (also if the action is transposed in the year 1900); second chapter of the seriesLa via della musica ("The music way").
Tutti gli zeri del mondo ("All the zeros of the world") – musical show fromMirabilandia, hosted byRenato Zero.
Tutti in piazza per capodanno ("Everybody in the square for New Years Eve") – show for the end of the year, hosted fromVerona byMilly Carlucci; during the event, the new value, theEuro, is presented to the Italians.
Beat graffiti - Sulle tracce di Jack Kerouac ("On the trail ofJack Kerouac") - with Emanuele Bevilacqua and Dianne Jones, reportage about theBeat generation.[35]
Dov'è mio figlio? ("Where is my son?") – by Lucio Gaudino, withLaura Morante; the broadcast of the movie, about the research of a kidnapped child in Cuba, curiously coincides with theElián González affair.
La casa delle beffe ("The jests' house") – byPier Francesco Pingitore, withAnna Falchi andPippo Franco; 2 parts. A Tuscan villa is the theatre, in various historical ages, of eight jests (plus one, in the year 2000, which frames the others).
Giornalisti ("Journalists") – byDonatella Maiorca, with Fabrizio Conti and Donatella Cavalli; Italian version of the Spanish serialPeriodistas, it does not repeat the success of the prototype and lasts for just a season.
Questa casa non è un albergo ("This house is not an hotel") – byRaffaele Mertes, with Sabina Ciuffini in the (autobiographical) role of a mother of a family, former TV star, and Sergio Bustric.
Macchemù[39] – contest among the most famous title tracks of the Italian TV shows, hosted byPaola Barale; the winner isGiorgio Vanni withPokémon.
Operazione five ("Operation five") – anthology of theCanale 5 variety shows, celebrating the twenty years of activity by the network.
Ricomincio da 20 ("I restart from twenty") – show celebrating the Canale 5's twenty years of activity, hosted byMike Bongiorno andPaolo Bonolis.
Provini, tutti pazzi per la TV ("Auditions, everybody crazy for TV") – hosted byGerry Scotti; unfortunate auditions, taken from the Mediaset archives, are shown to the public, often in presence of the candidates themselves.
Telenauta 69 – withLilo & Greg; the program opposes nostalgically a fake 1969 RAI variety, shot in black and white and inspired to cult shows asCanzonissima, to pieces of the vulgar Italian TV in 2000.
Wozzup, la casa di Italia 1 ("What's up, Italia1 house") – talk show aimed to the teen-agers, hosted by Daniele Bossari.
Futurama (Italia 1) (1999–2013)
Kipper (Italia 1) (1997–2000)
Dragon Tales (Italia 1) (1999–2005)
Oggy and the Cockroaches (Italia 1) (1998–2019)