In the news, Conradian's “shadow line,” which heralds honorable maturity and a discreet courage to change, lies in a small strip. A strip that colors the increase in ratings blue in the large target group map; despite the red stripe meandering viciously downwards. Of all the Italian news channels, only Tg1, the regional Rai news programs and TgLa7 can currently boast the coveted blue stripe.
But the case of the flagship network's newscast (an adventure-hungry sailing ship like in Conrad's book) requires analysis in itself, if only because its director is considered the commander-in-chief of “melon” information. Gian Marco Chiocci, the only one for which Giorgia really campaigned, embodies the strategist of a “cultural revolution” that was initiated with journalistically irrefutable, simple, even banal goals. And that means: avoid showgirls, “pastoni” and “sandwiches” of the Christian Democratic school as much as possible; take at least one scoop per week; Despite the tradition of an “institutional” and therefore pro-government newscast, focus on the news first.
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Today Tg1 is recording this 24.4% share And 4.6 million viewers, or plus 1.3% or plus 207 thousand compared to January 2023. An excellent performance for Agcom. A performance that Repubblica judged as a noticeable decline in viewer numbers. Both interpretations of the data are true. Regrettably, Molinari's newspaper neglects to state that in general television there was a “striking decline” in prime time, all news programs and in the ratings of the main national news programs in the first nine months of the year in question compared to the same period of 2022.
Remember that the big machine of Tg1 is inflating its sails in the face of the great events of which the year 2022 has been very full: the story of Covid, the Ukraine war, the election of Mattarella, the inauguration of Draghi, the election of the first female prime minister, the death of Queen Elizabeth, the World Cup. It is a series of extraordinary and unpredictable events that the TG1 cameras and viewers eagerly fed on. From the perspective of the information product, an astral conjunction is created that is difficult to repeat. Of course, this applies to all broadcasters. However, Chiocci's Repubblica colleagues neglected to evaluate the context. And the Mileu is fucking essential.
Furthermore, Repubblica carefully avoids mentioning here the revolution that the director of Tg1 is preparing with patience in now six months of management through small but persistent earthquakes. I quote randomly. The “sung Mass” was desacralized by relegating politics, often the third or fourth message, to the layout and privileging the news. And it's normal: Chiocci was born an investigative journalist, but usually it is politics that creeps into the ganglia of Tg1.
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It was dared – a daring provocation – to publish the photos of the kibbutz hostages hanging on the lead walls behind the host or the pictures of all the women raped and killed in Italy, which went viral on social media and in newspapers. The director himself tried the unpublished interview with the Pope and the highly rated (25.4% share) with Fiorello. Social media was launched effectively with 12 million views in the first month. In short, Chiocci stubbornly achieved his goals in his first semester as a television host. For the opposition, the idea remains that Tg1 is a “TeleMeloni» Omnipresent and in the exclusive service of the executive branch, which would permeate every interstices of the news in a slow and subtle destruction of democracy. Which, beyond legitimate political perception, is simply nonsense. In reality, regardless of the guideline, Agcom and the Pavia Observatory confirm the words of the Prime Minister in the press conference: “If the center-right opposition had literally disappeared from the news broadcasts of the Renzi, Conte and Draghi era, Today Pd and Cinquestelle in terms of video presence on Tg1 the same percentage dignity.
ANTENNA TIME – Now, in the tireless counting of the so-called “talk time” and “news time” (added together they make up the infamous “antenna time”), we are getting closer to the perfect information parity required than ever before by Agcom: 30% majority, 30% opposition, 30% government “when pro-government peaks of 60% were reached with the yellow-green government, and 50% with Draghi.” Now, in the role play, the attacks are legitimate and commonplace. But the “shadow line”, the limit of maturity coupled with a touch of honesty, should apply to everyone: politicians, brigantine commanders, even journalists…