#6 - JRL 9107 - JRL Home
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005
From: "Nicolai N. Petro" <kolya@uri.edu>
Subject: Impressions of Russian television

During a week long visit to the Russian city of Novgorod-the-Great in mid-March I had a chance to watch a bit of television. I was expecting rather dull fare, given the concerns over state ownership of the media, and was quite surprised by the large number of talk shows discussing the most controversial topics--from Aslan Maskhadov's death, to abuses in the Russian military.

Several prime time evening shows have an interview format in which participants express different points of view, after which their partisans in the audience pepper the other side with questions. This group includes "Vyorsty" with Leonid Mlechin (TVS), "Post Scriptum," with Alexei Pushkov (TVTs), "Osnovnoi instinct" with Svetlana Sorokina (ORT), and "Personal'no vash" (TVS-Ekho). There is also a rather high brow interview program on the "Kultura" channel hosted by former culture minister Mikhail Shvydkoi that tackles controversial subjects of particular interest to writers and artists.

Straight interviews of prominent news makers is preferred in "Shkola zlosloviya" (NTV), "Zerkalo" (RTR), "Glavnoe" (NTV), "Vremena (ORT), and the morning show "Apelsinovy sok" (NTV). An intriguing direct debate format between two opposing viewpoints is the calling card of Vladimir Solovyov's "K Baryeru" program on NTV.

Analytical news programs with commentary include "Besplatnyi syr" (TVS-Ekho), "Moment istiny" (TVTs), "Professiya Reporter" (NTV), "Spetsialnyi correspondent" (RTR), and "Rossiiskaya panorama" (TVS-Ekho). More on the "straight news" side are "Strana i mir" (NTV) and "Euronews" which is shown weekdays from 8-9 AM. There is also now now a 24-hour news channel called "RBK" that provides a running mixture of financial analysis interlaced with political commentary.

I was particularly struck by a segment on Anna Maksimovskoi's show "Nedelya" (REN-TV) that was very sympathetic to the late Aslan Mashkadov's wife Kusama and son Anzor. Along with brief interviews with them, it showed protests among the Chechen diaspora in Turkey, support for new Chechen rebel leadership in Baku, as well as scenes of their commemoration of Aslan Maskhadov's death. Overall, it presented Maskhadov's relatives in quite a favorable light.

Historical exposes of the Soviet era and its legacy still seem to be quite popular, and include shows such as "Sovershenno sekretno" (NTV) which that week had a report on abuses inside the current Russian military, "Istorichesky detektiv" (RTR), "Osobaya papka (TVTs), "Sekretnye materialy" (TVTs) and "Kak eto bylo" (TVS-Ekho).

Building on the popularity of long running legal information show "Chelovek i zakon," there is a now a show that can be seen up to four times a day! It is modeled after the court room television shows popular in America and is called "Chas suda." Even the web site is similar to its American counterparts. It is hosted by noted jurist Pavel Astakhov, who recently served as counsel to the newspaper Kommersant in its successful appeal against the libel suit brought against it by Alfa Bank. You can view many of these shows at their web site or, for a small fee, they can be downloaded from the "Russian digital television archive" at http://www.regnet.ru/intl/en/channels/.

All these channels, with the exception of TVS-Ekho, can be received with simple rabbit ear antennas in Novgorod, which is all we had back in 2002. Today, however, cable is available throughout the city, for a modest fee. The basic service includes 19 channels--including two Ukrainian channels, one Belorussian station, and one Romanian movie channel. Internet service is extra.

Even before my recent visit, it struck me as oddly implausible to regard the Russian print media as essentially "free" simply because it is largely in private hands, but Russian television as "not free" simply because corporations in which the Russian government has a controlling stake also own television stations. The implausibility lies in the fact that, if people were truly dissatisfied with what they were seeing on television, they could very easily subscribe to their favorite national (or international) newspaper. This can be done at your local post office. The national press thus acts as an important control on the quality of what is shown on state television channels.

The sheer variety of subjects discussed and opinions expressed on Russian television explains why a shift away from state supported television has not occurred, and should lead us to rethink our rather simplistic notions about the state of the media in Russia.