Araldo Telefonico

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Araldo Telefonico ("Telephone Herald" in English) was the name used for a group of telephone newspaper systems located in Italy, which provided news and entertainment programming over telephone lines to subscribing homes and businesses. Beginning with the capital city of Rome in 1910, this was the most widely implemented of the various telephone newspaper operations, however, in the early 1920s, the systems were merged with, and eventually superseded by, the development of radio broadcasting.

Telephone newspaper technology

Telephone Newspapers, introduced in the 1890s, transmitted news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. They were the first example of electronic broadcasting, although only a few were established, most commonly in European cities. These systems predated the development, in the 1920s, of radio broadcasting. They were eventually supplanted by radio stations, because radio signals could more easily cover much wider areas with higher quality audio, without incurring the costs of a telephone line infrastructure.

Italy European country

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a European country located in Southern Europe consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and traversed along its length by the Apennines, Italy has a largely temperate seasonal climate including Mediterranean and Alpine zones. The country covers a total area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi), and land area of 294,140 km2 (113,570 sq mi), and shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. Italy has a territorial exclave in Switzerland (Campione) and a maritime exclave in the Tunisian Sea (Lampedusa). With around 60 million inhabitants, Italy is the fourth-most populous member state of the European Union.

History

The Araldo Telefonico employed technology licensed from the operators of the Telefon Hírmondó , which had debuted as a telephone newspaper in Budapest, Hungary in 1893. Beginning in 1906, Luigi Ranieri, an Italian engineer who represented the Construction Mécaniques Escher Wyss and Company of Zurich, Switzerland, applied for permission to install systems in Rome, Milan, and Naples. [1] In August 1909 the Italian government authorized operations in Rome, [2] [3] which began service the next year, with a schedule similar to that of the Telefon Hírmondó's. There was some skepticism about the practicality of the idea among the local newspapers, with one declaring: "the Romans love the quiet life and don't want to be disturbed by things that have nothing to do with them". [4]

<i>Telefon Hírmondó</i>

The Telefon Hírmondó was a "telephone newspaper" located in Budapest, Hungary, which, beginning in 1893, provided news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. It was both the first and the longest surviving telephone newspaper system, although from late 1925 until its termination in 1944 it was primarily used to retransmit programmes broadcast by an affiliated radio station.

The Rome facility featured an extensive range of programs, running from 8:00 a.m. to late at night. Programming consisted of news, including stock exchange reports and information about the Italian Parliament, religious services, time signals, and language courses. Also featured were musical concerts, both from a local studio and via contracted prominent theaters and other establishments. The number of subscribers was 100 in September 1910, growing to 1,100 two years later, and reaching a peak of 1,315 in December 1914. A subscribers directory from 1912 listed numerous prominent individuals, including Italy's Queen Elena, plus a listening station located at the Camera dei Deputati legislative building. [5]

Under the provisions of the authorization issued by the Italian Postal Ministry, the Rome facility was required to pay ongoing fees, but was unable to meet this requirement during the first three years of service, even after a reduction in the fee schedule. Because of this, in February 1914 the Postal Ministry issued an ordinance attempting to revoke its operating license, followed by two orders in 1915 to cease operations, but Luigi Ranieri refused to comply, and continued to operate in defiance of the government instructions. Finally, a 1917 decision by the Tribunale di Roma (Rome city court) ruled in Ranieri's favor, on the grounds that the fees were only applicable to telephone systems providing two-way communication, while the Araldo Telefonico's programming constituted "neither a communication medium nor a telephone" in the generally understood sense. [6] Despite this legal victory, the Rome operation was suspended in 1916 due to World War I. Following the war, the Rome system was relaunched in 1922, with Luigi Ranieri now working with his son, Augusto. Additional systems were built in the city of Milan, plus, in late 1921, Bologna.

World War I 1914–1918 global war starting in Europe

World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the resulting 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.

Beginning in 1923, Luigi Ranieri began operating a radio broadcasting station, known as Radio Araldo. Initially the Rome Araldo Telefonico maintained an programming advantage over radio stations, because it held the exclusive right to performances made from the best known theaters. In 1924, Radio Araldo was combined with others [7] to form the broadcasting company Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI); in 1928 the URI became Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (EIAR), and finally, in 1944, Radio Audizioni Italiane (RAI). [8] Maria Luisa Boncompagni, who, beginning in 1914, had been the announcer in charge of reading the morning news reports provided by the Agenzia Stefani press agency for the Araldo Telefonico, became a prominent URI radio announcer.

Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche

The Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (EIAR) was the public service broadcaster in Fascist Italy and the only entity permitted to broadcast by the government.

RAI Italys national public service

RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

In their last years the systems no longer originated their own programming, instead merely serving as relays, sending local radio programs by telephone line to homes that wanted to avoid having to purchase and maintain radio receivers. [9] The Bologna system was the last to remain operational, surviving until 1943, although by then the number of subscribers had dwindled to just 100. [10]

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References

  1. ↑ "Nouve Applicazioni Telefoniche", Giornale della Libreria, Tipografia e Industrie Affini, June 21, 1908, page 357.
  2. ↑ "Radio before Radio: Araldo Telefonico and the Invention of Italian Broadcasting" by Gabriele Balbi, Technology and Culture, October 2010, Volume 51, Number 4, pages 792.
  3. ↑ Person to Person: The International Impact of the Telephone by Peter Young, 1991, page 73.
  4. ↑ "L'Araldo Telefonico", Il Travaso, July 25, 1909. Quoted by Balbi (2010), page 792.
  5. ↑ Balbi (2010), page 797.
  6. ↑ "'Araldo Telefonico'—Non costituisce 'communicazione telefonica'—Contravenzione—Competenza," Rivista delle comunicazioni 10, no. 6 (June 1917), pages 166-168. Quoted by Balbi (2010), pages 797-798.
  7. ↑ Le parole e le figure: storia dei media in Italia dall'età liberale alla seconda guerra mondiale by Andrea Sangiovanni, 2012, page 125.
  8. ↑ "Le Origini Della Radiodiffusione In Italia: Ines Viviani Donarelli & Maria Luisa Boncompagni". Comitato Guglielmo Marconi International. Retrieved 2016-05-25.
  9. ↑ Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media edited by Gerold Goggin and Larissa Hjorth, 2009, page 163.
  10. ↑ Balbi (2010), page 804.
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