Opera from Italy's great houses, jazz past midnight.
Rai's Terzo Programma first went on air at nine on a Sunday evening, 1 October 1950, a cultural service loosely modelled on the BBC Third Programme. From 1953 until the end of 1977 it carried a concert every evening, and after RAI's 1975 reform the channel took the name Radio 3. In March 1976 director Enzo Forcella started Prima pagina, a morning press review handed to a different journalist each week, with Ruggero Orlando taking the first turn. By that October listeners were phoning in with questions on air.
Days lean on talk and books, with classical music in the morning and a concert at noon, and in the evening Il Cartellone relays opera and orchestral nights from Italian theatres and festivals abroad. Late at night comes Battiti, started by Pino Saulo in 2003, ninety minutes of adventurous jazz and experimental electronics, before sister channel Radio 3 Classica takes the small hours.
Radio for people who read footnotes.
