If you can find Italian audio or video downloads from various torrent sites (careful about copyrights) there are certain players that allow you to slow the speed by 10% increments. I do pretty well now if I listen at 79 - 80% normal speed, and take it down even slower for things I really do not understand at all. That helped me learn very much... Just get used to listening to or watching things you may already be familiar with. Librivox.org and LiberLiber have Italian text and audio downloads - mainly public domain. Don't be ashamed to listen to "kids stuff" like fairy tales - you already know what happens in those stories - when you listen in Italian you can often related the English word to its Latin root. Finally, a plug for a non-profit dot-com: I have a website http://www.italofilia.com that is designed to help people learn Italian. The easier things for beginners are the fables in the Gozzano tab, and also the Ratman and Madagascar Penguins transcripts. You may be able to see those shows on cable. I don't have RAI myself, so I don't know. Also try the RAI website. There are resources for learning Italian, including some downloadable audio files. Buona fortuna, giovanotto. Work hard at it and it gets easier.

If you want to learn Italian and practice your writing, please try to write in Italian. You will get helpful corrections from native speakers.