Career
Bongiorno returned to Italy in 1953. He appeared in the program Arrivi e partenze (Arrivals and Departures) on the TV channel RAI on the very first day of official public TV transmissions in Italy. From 1955 to 1959 he hosted the quiz show Lascia o raddoppia?, the Italian version of USA's The $64,000 Question. This was the first successful quiz show on Italian TV, and became one of the most famous Italian TV programs ever.
Another successful program was Campanile Sera (Bell Tower Evening, 1959–1962), in which a southern Italian town and a northern one challenged each other with questions made to representatives of the two towns who were present in the studio and practical games played by citizens situated at the same towns.
In 1963 Umberto Eco wrote an essay entitled Fenomenologia di Mike Bongiorno in which he used advanced academic theories to shed light on Mike Bongiorno and his way of communicating. Eco held that Mike Bongiorno was so good at portraying himself as no better than average in every respect, that 100% of his audience could feel good about themselves.
Beginning in 1963, he hosted the first of eleven editions of the Sanremo Festival. Then he hosted the quiz programs Caccia al numero (Number Hunting, 1962), La Fiera dei Sogni (Dream Fair, 1962–1965) and Giochi in Famiglia (Games in Family, 1966–1969). But the greatest success came with the quiz program Rischiatutto (1970–1974), an adapted Italian version of Jeopardy!, with 20 to 30 million watchers every Thursday night, the highest audience in the history of Italian TV. Other programs hosted by Bongiorno were the news talk show Ieri e Oggi (Yesterday and Today, 1976) and the quiz programs Scommettiamo? (Wanna Bet?, 1976–1978), inspired by horse-racing, and a remake of Lascia o raddoppia? in 1979.
He moved to Tele Milano (now Canale 5), one of the first Italian commercial TV channels owned by Mediaset, the media company founded by Silvio Berlusconi, to host I sogni nel cassetto (The dreams, literally "The dreams in the drawer", 1979–1980). After a brief return to RAI with the news-game Flash (1980–1982), he continued working for Mediaset quiz programmes Bis (1981–1990), Superflash (1982–1985), Pentathlon (1985–1987), Telemike (1987–1992), Tris (1990–1991), the math game Tutti per uno (All for one, 1992) and from 1989 to 2003 La ruota della fortuna (Wheel of Fortune).
From 1991 to 2001 he hosted Bravo, Bravissimo, a festival featuring preteen musicians, dancers and singers from all over the world. He won 24 Telegatto, the Italian TV prize.
Until 2005 he hosted Genius on Rete 4, an afternoon quiz show aimed at 12 to 14 year-olds. In 2006 and 2007 he hosted the prime-time quiz show Il Migliore (The Best) on Rete 4. More recently, he was also a guest of the second episode of the Gianfranco Funari's show Apocalypse Show on Rai Uno. On December 13, 2007, Mike Bongiorno was awarded a doctorate Honoris Causa by IULM University of Milan. On 26 March 2009 Bongiorno signed for SKY Italia after Mediaset decided not to renew his contract, where he planned to host a new game show on SKY Uno called RiSKYtutto (a modern edition of his popular show Rischiatutto), which had been scheduled to air in the autumn of 2009.
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