Canale 5 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel of Mediaset, owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It was the first private television network to have a national coverage in Italy in 1980. On 4 December 2012, Mediaset launched Canale 5 HD, a simulcast of Canale 5 in high-definition. The channel is aimed at a primarily adult audience, offering, mainly, entertainment, movies and TV series. Since January 2013, Canale 5 has been directed by Giancarlo Scheri.
History
1970s
In 1974 in Milano 2, a satellite city built by Silvio Berlusconi, Giacomo Properzj and Alceo Moretti, the private cable television station Telemilanocavo was founded, whose transmissions began on 24 September. The channel broadcast via cable thanks to the sentence of the Constitutional Court in July, which liberalizes this type of television broadcasting. Approximately 5,000 households are connected to the cable system, which corresponded to 20,000 viewers.
Then, following the liberalization of terrestrial local broadcasting, many other television stations were born and competition, causing a drop in revenues, led the owners to sell the television in 1976 for the symbolic price of one lira to a company of the Berlusconi group, based in a basement of an apartment building near the Palazzo dei Cigni, also condoning the unpaid rent.
With the transition from cable to terreatrial, Telemilanocavo moved its studios to the Palazzo dei Cigni and became Telemilano 58, from the name of the UHF channel frequency used and taken over by the local broadcaster TVI Television International of Milan, with a system in Hotel Michelangelo. At the same time technical investments were made with the alliance of an entrepreneur specialized in the production of equipment for the reception of television signals, Adriano Galliani, who assumed an important role in the production of the broadcaster's television equipment. Success came in the 1979-1980 season with several broadcasts conducted, among others, by Mike Bongiorno, Claudio Lippi, Claudio Cecchetto and I Gatti di Vicolo Miracoli.
On February 23, 1979, the trademark "Canale 5" was registered in Milan. A few months later, on 12 November, the trademark "Canale 5 Music Srl" was also registered in the same city. The name was chosen by Berlusconi with Adriano Galliani "for a matter of euphony" but also because a local name like that of Telemilano was starting to feel tight for a broadcaster that aspired to become a major national television network. In this period Berlusconi buys several local private broadcasters scattered throughout Italy: the idea of the "pizzone" (the shipment of pre-recorded videotapes from one broadcaster to another) emerges after Berlusconi bought Tele Torino International from FIAT.
1980s
On January 10, 1980 Silvio Berlusconi and Mike Bongiorno held a press conference in the Telemilano studios. With a view to create a national network, Berlusconi agrees with about 50 private broadcasters (even those not owned by him) scattered throughout Italy, to broadcast the same programs at the same time on all stations. The experiment officially begins with the game show I sogni nel casetto (Dreams in the Drawer), hosted by Mike Bongiorno and produced by Reteitalia. The game show, together with other Reteitalia productions, will have largely positive audience results, also thanks to the "pizzone" technique, thanks to which Reteitalia's productions were broadcast nationwide.
Thus began, in this period, the broadcasts of Canale 5 as a network at extra-regional level throughout the north. In the center-south, the network was called Canale 10 and had the same programming, logo and ownership as Canale 5. In Lombardy, programming covered the whole day, while in the other regions it could be broadcast starting in the late morning or only in the evening thanks to the interconnection with the local broadcasters associated with the circuit.
On 11 November 1980, the Canale 5 logo definitively replaced that of Canale 10 also in the center-south; is the official start date of transmissions of the national network of Canale 5. The opening and closing theme of the programs begins with the song Rondò veneziano by Gian Piero Reverberi chosen by Berlusconi under the advice of Freddy Naggiar of Baby Records.