This is a list of Italian television related events from 1983. Events 1983 is a turning point in the story of Italian television. After thirty years of undisputed RAI preponderance, Berlusconi’s Canale 5 fights as equal the public television and crushes the competition by the other two private networks: Rusconi’s Italia 1 is absorbed by Fininvest, Mondadori’s Rete 4, despite a programming of good standard, must face growing debts, moreover for a bad management of the advertising. Rai 6 January: the final evening of Fantastico 3, hosted by Corrado Mantoni and Raffaella Carrà, gets the highest ratings of the year (27, 4 million viewers). 5 February: Tiziana Rivale wins the 1983 Sanremo festival with Sarà quell che sarà, while Toto Cotugno gains the “people’s prize”, assigned by the public through the TOTIP coupons, with L’italiano. Vasco Rossi polemically reveals the use of playback, leaving the stage before the end of his song Vita spericolata. March 6: the third RAI channel, till then publicity free, begins to broadcast advertisements. June 13: the popular presenter Enzo Tortora is jailed, with the charge of Camorra association and drug trafficking; the public opinion divides into supporters of his innocence or guilt. October 3: RAI anticipates the opening of TV broadcasting from half past twelve to noon. In the lunch time slot, so far neglected, the first RAI channel airs a new phone quiz show, Pronto Raffaella? with Raffaella Carrà (see below). October 9: the First, Second and Third RAI Channels change name in RAI 1, RAI 2 and RAI 3 and get new logos (respectively, a sphere, a cube and a pyramid). Private channels January 2: birth of Rete A, owned by the editor Alberto Peruzzo. It begins as a generalist channel, but soon it specializes in home shopping and Latin-American telenovelas. January 5: Edilio Rusconi sells Italia 1 to Fininvest, for 35 billion liras. The channel becomes a television aimed to the young people. April 26-27: Rete 4 gets a scoop. While in Turin the trial to the Red Brigades is in progress, the channel broadcasts, in two evenings, an Enzo Biagi’s interview to Patrizio Peci, former terrorist, and then collaborator of justice. May:Canale 5, with a share of 13 %, overwhelms RAI 2 and becomes the second Italian channel; Publitalia, the Fininvest advertising agency, with a 504 million liras turnover, overcomes Sipra, the RAI agency. November 21: Canale 5 airs the first