The 20th century exposed Maltese listeners to Italian radio transmissions as early as the 1930s, when several wealthy Maltese families invested in a wireless radio set, keen on listening to Italian operas and renowned arias, which at the time enjoyed widespread popularity in Malta.
Italian radio transmissions, active since the 1920s and followed by RAI since the 1940s, gained prevalence over most of the neighbouring peninsula and its environs, often featuring speeches by then Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
As early as 1935, aware of this fresh Italian socio-political influence on the residents of the British colony and hot on the heels of the quibbling of the Language Question – a power struggle between English and Italian – the colonial authorities in Malta granted a licence to a British broadcast company, operating as Rediffusion.
The new company provided a radio…
