“A Public Service Through a Private TV”: Tracing Multidimensional Approaches to Researching Italian Local Television Through the History of TeleRoma56

Abstract

The (scarce) historiography on the history of Italy’s local televisions has largely outlined an adventurous story, often based on anecdotes and hearsay, and predominantly underscoring their evolution from being “free” TV stations to becoming private broadcasters. Whereas both RAI and Mediaset have actively engaged in efforts to systematize their archival collections, the possibility of undertaking an in-depth reconstruction of the history of Italy’s hundreds of local TVs is cut short by the lack of reliable sources and limited access to archival resources. The present article moves from these considerations with a dual intention: to complicate common understandings on the commercial evolution of Italy’s private television in the course of the 1980s; to propose a multidimensional approach to researching Italy’s local TV, combining a variegated ensemble of oral sources, audiovisual material, specialized TV magazines and national newspapers, public and private documents, as well as commercial and political archives. To these ends, the article focuses on the case-study provided by TeleRoma56, that is Rome’s first over-the-air TV station. During the 1980s, TeleRoma56 was owned by the Radical Party, consequently operating as a sort of “hybrid” local TV, combining its commercial exigencies with enduring instances of bottom-up political engagement. As a result, its story challenges any linear or easy interpretation of the progressive commercialization of Italian local TV, encouraging to look for unexplored historical trajectories and archival research pathways.