“National Mike”

Ten years after its foundation in 1944, the Italian public broadcaster RAI aired its first official show on January 3, 1954. The program, Arrivi e Partenze (“Arrivals and Departures”), was broadcast from Rome International Airport (and a few other major airports and ports throughout the peninsula) and featured a series of interviews with contemporary celebrities—both Italian and foreign—who were either arriving in or leaving Italy. Mike Bongiorno, a young Italian American journalist who had previously worked from the U.S.A. as a correspondent for EIAR (the radio broadcaster from which RAI developed), hosted the show.