An average of 10.4 million
people were watching the third night of the 2017 Sanremo Music
Festival presented by Carlo Conti and Maria De Filippi on
Thursday, televised on state broadcaster RAI.
The evening, dedicated to cover songs, garnered 49.7% of
total audience.
This was higher than the 47.88% seen on the same evening last
year and the highest since 2011, when the long-standing music
bonanza conducted by Gianni Morandi attracted 50.9% of those
watching television at that time.
At the Ariston Theatre venue in the Ligurian seaside resort,
regional governor and political advisor to former prime minister
Silvio Berlusconi, Giovanni Toti, commented on youth
unemployment levels in the country, calling them "intolerable".
At the traditional press conference held on Friday at the
Ariston Theater by Conti, Toti noted that it was The National
Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe.
As many as 15,000 Italians were tortured or killed by
Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during
the last two years of the war.
Many of the victims were thrown into the narrow mountain
gorges during anti-Fascist uprisings in the area and the exact
number of victims of these atrocities is unknown, in part
because Tito's forces destroyed local population records to
cover up their crimes.
"Remembering even here, at the most popular time of our
tradition, that piece of history is important to build a
future," Toti said.
Also taking part in the press conference was Valeria
Farinacci, whose career was originally launched at the music
festival and who was eliminated from the competition on Thursday
evening.
"This year went badly for the women in my round. There were
only two out of eight - Marianne Mirage and I - but neither of
us made it," she said.
The highest viewing audience on Thursday was at 9:52, when
15.578 million watched the 92-year-old midwife Maria Pollacci go
on stage, director of state broadcaster RAI1 Andrea Fabiano said
on Thursday.
Studio54 Network, the long-standing radio station of the
festival, has meanwhile decided this year to leave Sanremo and
go to the areas of central Italy hit in the latest earthquakes.
For two days, the radio broadcaster - which since 1989 has
been near the Ariston Theater in its motorhomes, will be in
Camerino, close to the part of the city that was almost entirely
razed to the by natural disaster to "be near the people hit",
Enzo Di Chiera said.
He added that "we will talk about an Italy that is
unfortunately dealing with serious problems and we will give
voice to those who need attention."
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