Column: the 3 phenomena of Italian television

Italian television is quite different from Dutch television. Anyone who has ever turned on the TV while in Italy can attest to this. Firstly, the Italians do not yet use subtitles as standard, so almost everything is dubbed nice and old-fashioned.

It is therefore still a mystery to me that the link between the lack of authentic English-language programs on TV and the poor English of Italian young people has still not been established.

Second, Gerry Scotti seems to host almost every game show on Italian television. But there are a number of other appearances that make Italian television quite unique.

These are the 3 phenomena of Italian television that you probably won't encounter anywhere else in the world.

Weathermen in uniform

The weather forecast is presented on various channels in Italy by men in military uniform. Loaded with ribbons and with quite a bit of stature, the weatherman shares with us the weather forecast for next week.

As laughable as it is, I've never really thought about why the weathermen wear uniforms. Especially for the visitors of This is Italy I delved a little deeper into the matter.

It turns out that many broadcasters purchase the weather services from the air Force; the Italian Air Force. The weathermen therefore do not just wear a uniform, but are therefore military in the air force.

veline

The Italians love show, we all know that. They try to put as much show in every program as possible. And in Italy show is synonymous with veline.

The velin ('showgirls') are young women who wear sexy outfits and assist the presenter of a program by doing dances, bringing objects and blowing kisses to the camera. Even in game shows where such tissue is actually completely unnecessary, they just give her an unnecessary task in order to attract the attention of the zapping male television viewers.

The endless portrayal of women as sex objects on Italian television has been causing controversy for years and more and more women are making their voices heard. The documentary was released a few years ago Corpo delle donne by Lorella Zanardo who has traveled all over the world via YouTube and caused a lot of controversy. The predominant presence of veline is for me personally also one of the main reasons why I do not watch Italian television.

Emilio Feder

Finally, there is Emilio Fede. What Gerry Scotti has with game shows, Emilio Fede has with news shows. Emilio Fede has been a newsreader since the 80s and from 1991 to 2012 he provided the news for TG4. For the less fast calculators among us: that is more than 20 years.

The best man didn't get any younger, of course, and it seemed as if the news program got longer and longer over the years. Not because there was more news, but because the man just agonizingly slowly read the news from his printed A4.

It also made no difference whether it was good news or bad news. Emilio Fede's sullen facial expression never changed. How is it possible that this man was allowed to present the news broadcast of TG20 continuously for more than 4 years?

That's not that hard at all. TG4 is the news program of Rete4, which is part of Mediaset. You probably already feel it coming; the big man behind Mediaset is of course Berlusconi and let it just happen that Emilio Fede and Berlusconi were good friends in the good old days.