What Do Italians Watch On Tv?

Aurelia

Aurelia

Community Member
Nov 10, 2014
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Sarajevo
Well, a wave of crime series has swept over Europe, that's a fact. It all started with Numb3rs and Criminal Minds, and then, all of a sudden, there were too many crime series to even name them all. The Germans synchronised half of them. The British filmed a few of their own. And so did the French and the Italians.

I've noticed that R.I.S. Rome is very popular here. It was one of the first series I'd seen that were Italian. Then they started showing Antimafia Squad and people were obsessed. Just recently, one of the older series, Detective Montelbano, was shown here, and many people seem to like it. It's different from, for example, the already mentioned Criminal Minds and Numb3rs, but it does have it's charm. It's even reminiscent of Inspektor Rex.

Well, what do you watch? Are Italians crazy about crime series like the rest of the Europe? Or has the wave ''missed'' them?
 
Oh yes, Italians watch a lot of crime series on TV :D They even have a "crime night", it's every Tuesday, but they show many crime series every single day, from Monday to Friday (except if there's some soccer match going on... then they stop everything and show sports).

Let me start with the past (well, it's more like the recent past, last 1-2 years).
I remember I first watched a few crime series on TV, I didn't even think I would begin to like them. They showed The Mentalist on TV for a while, that one I still watch today, but not on TV because I don' think they show it anymore.
I think I remember watching "Lie to me" on TV as well, but they stopped showing it a long time ago as well.

There were many crime series they showed on TV, it's how I began to like most of them :)

Right now, I can tell you for sure they are showing the CSI series (the Las Vegas and New York series, the LV only on Tuesday though).
They're also showing Psych, it's not really a crime show, but it's sort of a detective show, 2 guys solving detective cases.

As far as others crime series go (that I don't really watch), I'll try to name a few I found on the TV programme: Carabinieri (action thriller with some comedy), Diagnosis: Murder (it's a really old crime show, starring Dick Van Dyke), White Collar, Murder, She Wrote (which they translate into "the lady in yellow"... makes no sense to me! LOL)... and some other ones.

In conclusion... yes, the Italian television has gone mad with rime series as well :D hahah
 
Well, now I see the similarity. Same is happening here, which can be explained by the fact that I'd watched almost every show you'd named (with the exception of Diagnosis: Murder, White Collar and Carabinieri). All the rest were very popular around here as well. I didn't know there was a ''crime night''. Here it's a little different: you have a whole channel which shows crime series day and night! (Fox Crime). So you can watch whatever you want whenever you want. It's a little crazy, if you ask me, and definitely going overboard, as then they end up repeating so many series for so long... but oh, well, I guess it's the way it is.

It's not really unexpected, I must say - with the whole world going crazy with crime series, I had kind of expected this answer, but I still wondered which shows you watched. Seems we are watching more American shows than any other. I guess it's ''normal'' nowadays, with Hollywood and everything. I do wish people would give chance to other series as well. There are some British crime series worth watching: Law & Order UK and the Silent Witness come to mind, but that's not everything. I like Italian crime series as well - if you haven't watched R.I.S. Rome, you really should, at least an episode or two. They're really good. They only didn't get the chance to ''shine'' because of the great number of series being shown at TV every day, but I truly recommend this one.
 
I'm not so sure that Italians consider TV shows as their primary source of entertainment. There was another thread that discusses how most of Italians refuse to give up their landline. Maybe Italians enjoy talking and discussing things with their friends more than passive activities like watching TV at home? It also appears that the Italian TV shows could be underfunded and therefore the team are cutting costs out of the translation department. This is one of the most common things production houses do to cut costs. They just do the translations themselves and not allocate the necessary funding for proper language services. :oops: It's actually hurting more than just the language industry, because they are compromising the quality of the entertainment they provide watchers.
 
This is a very interesting point and I have noticed the same thing here - about the low quality translation, I mean. I can put you off, if the mistakes are too obvious or too frequent, and as I always comment on badly translated things, my family never watches a movie with me (I can't really help it), so I do understand this.

I've also read the landline discussion. It appears that Italians get phones for free during the evening hours (I hope I had not misunderstood this), so it's only natural they'dd enjoy the conversation with their friends and family, but you can always do it while watching something on the TV, washing dishes or something like that (you don't even need a wireless phone, just a long cord, really). It's what my mum always does. She never talks much on the phone, but when she does, she's always moving about the house - it's been like that since forever.

I have also noticed that there's a lot of potential in Italian TV shows - take for example R.I.S. Rome. It's actually very good, and I was surprised. When you're surrounded with American TV, you somehow start adapting. I do believe this show could become even better if only a little more funding was approved. The entertainment industry seems to be budding still in Italy. We'll be waiting patiently for its peak.
 
The thing with the translation industry, just like any other industry, the rating works both ways. Translators also rate their clients based on their performance. :)

I'm not familiar with the Italian statistics on the topic. If you're really interested in getting the indisputable trends, you could check out the data from data visualization websites. :D My search yielded in nothing on that. It seems that there are more data from Hollywood and other markets. I forgot my keywords.
 
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RAI is the local channel with game shows, talk shows and Italian music but most of them watch the same things that everyone else does. Series channel and soap opera's are popular too.
 
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