Unione radiofonica italiana


The Unione radiofonica italiana or URI, was an Italian radio broadcaster founded in Turin on 27 August 1924. It was the exclusive radio broadcaster of the Kingdom of Italy.

History

Establishment

On 8 February 1923, the Royal decree n. 1067 gave to the State the exclusive rights for the radio broadcasts to be exercised through a concessionaire company. In consequence, three companies were born in order to achieve the licence, all of them were related to American and British manufacturers of radio devices:
Negotiations lasted more than a year, but Minister of Post Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò seemed to want to give the licence to Ranieri.
However, at the beginning of 1924, Di Cesarò resigned from the government and he was replaced by Costanzo Ciano, who preferred Marconi.
Ranieri succeed to achieve a technical test. On 20 March 1924, Radiofono installed a test station in the Centocelle district of Rome, but it failed to broadcast a speech of Benito Mussolini in the Costanzi theater on the next 23 March probably due to electric interferences.
On 3 June 1924, Minister of Communications Costanzo Ciano addressed a letter to the companies who requested the licence, inviting them to find an agreement.
A compromise was reached with the formation of a united company, without however the joining of Radio Araldo which did not have enough capital in order to take part to it. On 27 August 1924, the URI was founded by Radiofono and SIRAC through the subscription of a share capital of 1,400,000 lire. Enrico Marches from FIAT was appointed as president, while Luigi Solari, close to Guglielmo Marconi, as deputy president.

Broadcasts

On 6 October 1924, at 9 pm, the first URI station of San Filippo in Rome, produced by Marconi, broadcast the first regular announcement read by Maria Luisa Boncompagni:
Shortly after, Ines Viviani Donarelli, from the Roman station of Corrodi Palace, presented the first programme:
The programme, lasted one hour and half, broadcast opera, chamber and classical music along with a weather report and news about the stock exchange.
On 27 November 1924, the government gave to URI private company the exclusive licences of radio broadcasting for six years, accordingly to an agreement signed on 27 November 1924 and the Royal Decree n. 2191 of 14 October 1924.
With that decree, URI was considered as the only Italian radio broadcaster to be authorized to spread news of public interest and the government was the only to approve the news broadcasting from press agencies different from Agenzia Stefani, the official source as well as the first Italian press agency founded in 1853 by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.
The URI announcer was Maria Luisa Boncompagni from L'Araldo Telefonico and Radio Araldo.
On 18 January 1925, URI published the first issue of Radiorario, a weekly magazine which provided the broadcast schedules and publicized the new media to the public.
The radio station of Rome was followed by the one of Milan and Naples.
On October 1926, adverts began to be broadcast and the advertising space was provided by Sipra.
The radio broadcasting phenomena, initially hindered by prohibitive costs for a very poor Italy, took of in the thirties due to the initiatives promoted by the Fascist regime which gave to each casa del Fascio a radio device and promoted the spread of economical devices like Radiorurale and radio Balilla.
According to the Royal Law Decree n. 2207 of 17 November 1927, URI became the Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche in January 1928.