Nicola, Nichi, Grauso, 76 years old, from Cagliari, former owner of L'Unione Sarda until 1999, when the property passed to the current publisher Sergio Zuncheddu, has died.

A visionary entrepreneur, a pioneer of the new world of information, he was able to interpret the signs of the future that was upon us. In 1975 he gave life to Radiolina Fm 98 Mhz, the first private radio in Sardinia and among the first in all of Italy . A few months after the beginning of his radio adventure, he also went to conquer the world of television by baptizing the broadcasts of Videolina, the first television over the air on the Island.

On May 17, 1985, thanks to the success of the now ten-year editorial experience of Videolina and Radiolina, the adventure at L'Unione Sarda began. In 1994, when the web was a mysterious and unknown creature, he founded the site, Unionesarda.it, the first online newspaper in Europe and second in the world after the Washington Post. It was him, again in the 1990s, who gave life to the first global internet provider in Italy, Video On Line.

In February 2024 he received the terrible diagnosis: small cell carcinoma, inoperable. "One of the most aggressive tumors, if you leave it for a moment it regains strength", he said in his last interview with L'Unione Sarda. But he faced it with determination: "I have no negative perceptions and I no longer know what depression is, I work with a power that I did not know and a very strong motivation. I talk to my 26-year-old nephew with satisfaction, we have many projects".

The Internet, after all, had disappointed him: "I thought the network would have had a saving, liberating effect, and it partially had. But I didn't imagine this evolution. If I have to buy an ashtray I go to Amazon instead of going down to the store on the street. But I'm wrong." And yet, he was convinced: we should never surrender to the excessive power of the digital because "our land must be defended without fanaticism, with rigor and seriousness, keeping the cargo on board because elsewhere someone wants to decide how the world goes. Even ours."

(Unioneonline/D)

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