Quality Italian TV
I don't own a TV here in Italy. There are many reasons why I choose not to watch Italian television. This post relates to my first experience of watching TV when I first went to work in Rome. Not much has changed.
Carpet Burns
If you like all things colourful, intricately woven, flat and underfoot, the carpet channel is just for you. Yes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, carpets. Void of interesting documentaries exploring the cultural history of their origin or of the communities who dedicate their lives to creating such desirable masterpieces. Of the multitude of TV channels broadcast to the Italian population, this one merely displays rugs hung in a badly lit studio with a cheesy salesman. Sorry I meant show host and auctioneer. He's doing his best to increase the monetary figure that appears all fuzzy at the bottom of the TV screen in an early 1970s font.
Fascinating don’t you think? Should have huge ratings, can’t imagine why they haven’t exported it further a field.
Pausing there during the endless flicking through the massive choice of class entertainment that’s on offer, it’s always the same cheesy guy. In the same cheesy suit and indeed what seems to be in fact the same cheesy carpet hanging behind him. And the fuzzy price doesn’t seem to have increased at all either. It may well be a well-worn repeat (the carpet too) but I’m not sad enough to watch it long enough to see the credits roll. If I did it would be one of those rare occasions of welcome relief and excitement to see the adverts. I’d probably decide to wait for part two before rushing off to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Mind you, these would more than likely be well placed ad campaigns selling vacuum cleaners and good old Shake’n’Vac. Not to mention the marketing-savy Rugs-R-Us buying time to demonstrate their new range of toupees.
Who watches this crap is anyone’s guess, so I’m going to do just that. I guess its people who really get-off on floor furniture, so much so that it gets on the walls too. They probably like gambling but have never done so and are too lazy (or rich) to be bothered with going down to Carpet-U-Like as the rest of us do. To feel first hand, the fine quality of that imported nylon-polyester-static-electricity machined wall to wall foam-backed fabric. They are missing out on that rubbery new carpet smell too. They probably also daydream about hanging carpets on their walls, so that other rug lovers can gloat over how much they must have cost. Wishing for the day they strike it lucky, and rich, by buying an old rag which turns out to be the one Aladdin used to get about on.
Alternatively, they’re just like me, found themselves with time on their hands and so bored that they easily get hooked on remote control surfing. Actually I’m an even worse case scenario because my communal kitchen’s TV is, not surprisingly, a late 70s portable model. Requiring the old fashioned method of changing channel by leaving ones seat to adjust the aerial. An umbrella or pointy stick works well as a remote control too.
I can’t help but wonder at how they make money to run a station like that or indeed whether they do in fact sell these rugs, I mean that rug, and who is buying? I’d say the most lucrative time slot would be the post-pub night shift, (pre soft porn show) where the alcohol has a way of convincing even the scrooges amongst us that its time to whip out the plastic, even though come morning you’ll know you did something you regret and will feel somewhat burnt.
Rugs aren’t the only ones to get their own TV show, there is also a 24 hour show about loosing weight using electronic pads slapped on all over. This one has slightly higher production values than Carpet Channel since it uses three people and an extra couple of lights. There is still a cheesy show host but this time he’s wearing a white lab coat. His two assistants are sat behind him grinning inanely in trunks and bikinis with fake tans and rubber suckers placed in the wobbly regions. Maybe it's not about weight loss at all but a home movie of a recent visit to the local sanatorium.
Perhaps there is an opening for a new show which could increase the ratings. If they combine the two shows, they’d have it all ... A scantily clad couple on shag pile rug demonstrating a new rubber antistatic weight loss programme workout, shaking ‘n’ vac’ing… Actually, it probably does exist and comes on in the wee hours, post sobering up but pre hangover.
"Rug Lovers" - Introducing balding men to the new (old) way to get a head…
Another thing that is immensely annoying when it comes to watching any of the available three hundred and eighty-four plus television stations, is the way they return to the programme following the commercial break. They immediately say "see you next week, thanks for watching" and roll the credits. You then have to sit through the commercial break all over again by which time you’ve whittled away the best part of twenty minutes.
Which reminds me, and since I’ve mentioned the 70’s several times, a BBC children's television series whose title used to really annoy me was "Why Don't You?" Broadcast in 42 series between 1973 and 1995. It was an understandably shortened name for "Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?" It was a phrase which they always began the programme with by shouting it out loud. So why didn’t I do just that, why did I continue to watch it until the end? How did a programme survive when it was effectively telling its audience that they were a bit dim to stay watching something that even the presenters had said was boring? Never worked that one out.
Later, in the evenings, however there was a programme that succeeded in getting kids to switch off, it was called "John Craven's Newsround", you knew then it was time for tea.
Carpet Burns
If you like all things colourful, intricately woven, flat and underfoot, the carpet channel is just for you. Yes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, carpets. Void of interesting documentaries exploring the cultural history of their origin or of the communities who dedicate their lives to creating such desirable masterpieces. Of the multitude of TV channels broadcast to the Italian population, this one merely displays rugs hung in a badly lit studio with a cheesy salesman. Sorry I meant show host and auctioneer. He's doing his best to increase the monetary figure that appears all fuzzy at the bottom of the TV screen in an early 1970s font.
Fascinating don’t you think? Should have huge ratings, can’t imagine why they haven’t exported it further a field.
Pausing there during the endless flicking through the massive choice of class entertainment that’s on offer, it’s always the same cheesy guy. In the same cheesy suit and indeed what seems to be in fact the same cheesy carpet hanging behind him. And the fuzzy price doesn’t seem to have increased at all either. It may well be a well-worn repeat (the carpet too) but I’m not sad enough to watch it long enough to see the credits roll. If I did it would be one of those rare occasions of welcome relief and excitement to see the adverts. I’d probably decide to wait for part two before rushing off to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Mind you, these would more than likely be well placed ad campaigns selling vacuum cleaners and good old Shake’n’Vac. Not to mention the marketing-savy Rugs-R-Us buying time to demonstrate their new range of toupees.
Who watches this crap is anyone’s guess, so I’m going to do just that. I guess its people who really get-off on floor furniture, so much so that it gets on the walls too. They probably like gambling but have never done so and are too lazy (or rich) to be bothered with going down to Carpet-U-Like as the rest of us do. To feel first hand, the fine quality of that imported nylon-polyester-static-electricity machined wall to wall foam-backed fabric. They are missing out on that rubbery new carpet smell too. They probably also daydream about hanging carpets on their walls, so that other rug lovers can gloat over how much they must have cost. Wishing for the day they strike it lucky, and rich, by buying an old rag which turns out to be the one Aladdin used to get about on.
Alternatively, they’re just like me, found themselves with time on their hands and so bored that they easily get hooked on remote control surfing. Actually I’m an even worse case scenario because my communal kitchen’s TV is, not surprisingly, a late 70s portable model. Requiring the old fashioned method of changing channel by leaving ones seat to adjust the aerial. An umbrella or pointy stick works well as a remote control too.
I can’t help but wonder at how they make money to run a station like that or indeed whether they do in fact sell these rugs, I mean that rug, and who is buying? I’d say the most lucrative time slot would be the post-pub night shift, (pre soft porn show) where the alcohol has a way of convincing even the scrooges amongst us that its time to whip out the plastic, even though come morning you’ll know you did something you regret and will feel somewhat burnt.
Rugs aren’t the only ones to get their own TV show, there is also a 24 hour show about loosing weight using electronic pads slapped on all over. This one has slightly higher production values than Carpet Channel since it uses three people and an extra couple of lights. There is still a cheesy show host but this time he’s wearing a white lab coat. His two assistants are sat behind him grinning inanely in trunks and bikinis with fake tans and rubber suckers placed in the wobbly regions. Maybe it's not about weight loss at all but a home movie of a recent visit to the local sanatorium.
Perhaps there is an opening for a new show which could increase the ratings. If they combine the two shows, they’d have it all ... A scantily clad couple on shag pile rug demonstrating a new rubber antistatic weight loss programme workout, shaking ‘n’ vac’ing… Actually, it probably does exist and comes on in the wee hours, post sobering up but pre hangover.
"Rug Lovers" - Introducing balding men to the new (old) way to get a head…
Another thing that is immensely annoying when it comes to watching any of the available three hundred and eighty-four plus television stations, is the way they return to the programme following the commercial break. They immediately say "see you next week, thanks for watching" and roll the credits. You then have to sit through the commercial break all over again by which time you’ve whittled away the best part of twenty minutes.
RAI
The annual cost of the Italian TV licence fee is around €100 once VAT (IVA) is accounted for. The licence is used to part-fund the Italian public service broadcaster RAI. It does not mean that RAI channels are free from advertising. The licence fee was introduced for owners of radio sets in 1923, and is currently governed by a law which dates back to 1938! However in 2016, the fee is now added to each household's electricity bill, even if you do not have any TV receiving equipment in your home. If you weren't aware of this new law then you'd have missed the opportunity to fill in a declaration form. You will be fined if you refuse to pay that part of your electricity bill. Unless you are prepared to trudge through the quagmire of Italian bureaucracy you'll not get it back and will have to keep paying each year. You have to remember to fill in this form each and every year because they will not remind you. (More information about this here)Long live the BBC
Which reminds me, and since I’ve mentioned the 70’s several times, a BBC children's television series whose title used to really annoy me was "Why Don't You?" Broadcast in 42 series between 1973 and 1995. It was an understandably shortened name for "Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?" It was a phrase which they always began the programme with by shouting it out loud. So why didn’t I do just that, why did I continue to watch it until the end? How did a programme survive when it was effectively telling its audience that they were a bit dim to stay watching something that even the presenters had said was boring? Never worked that one out.
Later, in the evenings, however there was a programme that succeeded in getting kids to switch off, it was called "John Craven's Newsround", you knew then it was time for tea.
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