The aesthetic evolution of football tv programs

Before DAZN, Sky Go and OTT platforms, there was a time when sports comparison, in-depth study and specials were a fixed, temporary appointment, necessarily set. basically, when football talk shows were an institution. From the first television program on Rai - La Domenica Sportiva, in 1953 -, until the advent of Sky's On Demand video in 2009, football was broadcast with fixed weekly appointments. Over the decades, a universe of tv studios, armchairs, links, jokes, heated comparisons (all here, on YouTube) and many iconic faces has been created. It started with Enzo Tortora and passed for the jackets of Aldo Biscardi and the pendolino of Maurizio Mosca, up to the sober style of Sandro Piccinini and the contemporary show man-social model by Pier Luigi Pardo. 

In thirty years the way of telling football on TV has changed in format and graphics. The studios, in fact, have evolved with new compositions and new tools, and the design of communication has also changed: now the audience has differentiated, every viewer can choose what to watch and, in a nutshell, each program works to address its personal average viewer. This is unlike in the past, when pay TV was still something niche and most tv users could watch football depth through the few programs that circulated on public television (not necessarily only on the generalist networks: there was a lot of talk about football also on local broadcasters). Football on television has created a nostalgia in the relationship between sport and the media, with programs that have become iconic in semiotics such as 90 minuto, Il processo del Lunedì (then Il processo di Biscardi), Dribbling, and again on Mediaset Pressing and Tiki Taka. In the 2000s, new autonomous companies such as the Sportitalia network grew and, with Sky, the evolution was completed with a different, more international style and with pre-established formats. From those audience-packed rooms to the touch screens of this decade, football in Italian television has a graphic history more than fifty years long

Logos 

 

The logos of today's programs are different for reference technologies and communication contexts. Those of current football television programs are designed to be exposed and shared on social networks and to take on any dimension. Graphic optimization has been shaped on modern communication channels and they themselves often integrate with formats and hashtags typical of online communication. The old font of Pressing, a program that continues to be aired in 2018 after closing in the 2000s, is deeply television. It has gradient colors and subtle strokes, reflecting a minimalist font type that at the time was very progressive, almost more elegant than the pompous and flashy models of other programs of generalist television. The aesthetics changed over the course of the 2000s with other programs such as ControCampo, in which the most bold and flashy graphics wanted to recall the type of program you were going to watch - the analysis, the debate, the wetting inside the studio. 

Tiki Taka, like Sky Calcio Show, used more vivid colors and an almost summery font instead; it also emphasizes the cheerful spirit of the program, with the presence of wags and funny characters who define a sympathetic, playful, lively but not heavy information content. Sky's broadcast programs, unlike, have a graphical approach in the logo that responds to an international format decided by the company; for example, for boban's study, the logo reflects the tones and content of the program. While it remains more minimal and almost exclusive that of Sky Calcio Club, to emphasize the idea of proposing an in-depth football analysis show (with almost all former great footballers) in the second evening. 

The jingle

Once upon a time, the acronym was everything. On YouTube there are dozens of playlists and collections that show the nostalgia of certain TV shows. It was the identifying trait of the program, the iconic moment, that has not left now: it has evolved its role. Stacchetti and hit songs were once used, while now this theme has evolved, it has matured into something more serious and institutional (except in the case of Tiki Taka). The acronym is more an introductory moment to wait for the speech and the content of the program, while in the absence of the internet and with the Sunday or Monday program as the only source of sports information, the acronym was an icaistic phase of the program that called everyone to presence and listening. 

The Studios

The approach of the study saw in the second decade of the year 2000 the affirmation of a new element: the table. From the Caressa Club to Sky Calcio Show (and Sky Calciomercato - L'Originale) an element that had always been present but in a different way has been restored. The long table that incorporated all the guests - with the conductor in the center - had been replaced in the first 2000 by the bearings and armchairs, with the program's host moving according to the current debate. In this way, one had more the impression of a living room, while in other programs, such as some programs of Rai and Mediaset of the nineties, longer tables were used, which gave the broadcast a more institutional and serious tone. This type of table is still found, especially in Rai programs such as Quelli che il calcio and La Domenica Sportiva. 

The only element that has always remained central to football television programs is the big screen, which since its entry (not in maxi version) in the sixties has always been maintained for connections and services. Now it is even more central to the progress of the program's lineup, and now, to have a lot of attention are the social workstations, with touch screens and new professional figures specially chosen for that type of work. The studio expands, yet the audience has shrunk - in the last two years, also due to coronavirus.