Making The Most of the Archive

Abstract

In the last 20 years, Italian television has discovered the richness and profitability of its enormous archives. Many new programmes have been broadcast on public and commercial television, making extensive use of historical fragments taken from previously aired shows. This essay explores the rationale behind the commercial re-use of TV archives in four different programmes: the “variety show made of variety shows” Da Da Da, the militant pastiche Blob, the commercial programming remix Super Show, the comedy history rewritten by La Super Storia On the basis of these programmes, the consequences and risks of putting de-contextualized pieces taken from the past into the contemporary TV flow will be explored.