MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya). - Eight years ago, a presidential decree set up a new Russian TV channel, Kultura (Culture).
With all the freedom of choice of TV programs, Kultura channel has no alternative today.
In Russia, you can skip in prime time through the terrestrial TV channels, then try the satellite channels, and still fail to find anything that is interesting, worth seeing, or even just useful. This is a typical complaint of Russian intellectuals, and many others as well. There are plenty of TV channels and programs, but almost all of them fall into the one category - general entertainment. "Television is responsible for the current state of people's minds, but most people involved in the TV industry prefer to brush aside socially important tasks," said Daniil Dondurei, social scientist and editor-in-chief of the Iskusstvo Kino (Cinema Art) magazine. "They say that their job is just to entertain the nation and nothing more." Television reminds McDonald's: its products are artificial, unappetizing and, most importantly, they can be harmful to health. Only Kultura TV channel offers proper "nourishment".
In terms of ratings, Kultura is a very small channel. Even although it broadcasts throughout the country, less than 5% of the national television audience watches the channel. However, it is not chasing market share. "Unlike other TV channels, Kultura has never sought to expand its audience," says Vladislav Flyarkovsky, presenter of the channel's news program. Similar channels abroad have similarly low ratings. For example, the French-German channel Arte has just 2-3%. But the viewers of these channels are both the most demanding and the most grateful. They expect television to enlighten and educate, not to manipulate people's ways of thinking, or to stupefy audiences with laborious serials and vacuous talk shows. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage museum, describes the Kultura channel as "a rare miracle," as "proof that television is not only a means of entertainment and propaganda, but also a form of art." Valery Gergiyev, director of the Mariinsky Theater, adds, "The Kultura channel is part of our lives. More importantly, many of us living in Russia in the early 21st century believe in the enormous value of the national treasury of arts."
To expect enlightenment from modern television borders on idealism. It can inform, convince, and entertain, but that does not mean it should do anything else. In fact, freedom of speech in the Russian media, which the West often claims does not exist, is limited by only one thing: commercial considerations. All kinds of things are shown and discussed on Russian television: bloody violence, perversions, outbursts of passions, and political and bohemian scandals. It is only when a program's ratings drop, and it is deemed unprofitable, that it is removed from the schedules. At the same time, a simple truth is being forgotten. "Freedom of speech, just like any other freedom, implies responsibility," says Vladimir Pozner, a famous TV anchorman. Dondurei agrees with him, "The weakness of, for example, Channel One, is that the channel's bosses make money from whatever they can." The time has come to speak of channels bearing responsibility for their products, which instead of bringing true freedom of speech bring absolute freedom from all values. It is this that is the biggest problem, not that someone or other is prohibited from saying something openly on Russian television.
This freedom from values, this nihilism that has infected many channels, has driven the intelligent and thinking audience into a kind of ghetto. Kultura is the only channel that screens old films by great directors, that discusses history in proper academic terms, rather than in a populist or amateur way, that shows the best ballet and opera performances by the world's leading theaters, and that offers tours around the Hermitage, the Russian Museum and the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. The channel was created on the initiative of outstanding cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, world-renowned philologist Dmitry Likhachev and popular writer Daniil Granin. Its programs are presented by talented cultural figures who are well known abroad, such as violist Yuri Bashmet, writer Viktor Yerofeyev (he makes the Apokrif literary program), and director of Pushkin Museum Irina Antonova (the Pyatoe Izmerenie [Fifth Dimension] program).
Kultura offers music programs about classic masterpieces, the Russian romance, jazz and pop idols, and broadcasts conservatoire concerts and performances by opera stars. It also reports from art exhibitions, screens talks by famous scientists, actors and sculptors, and shows the best documentaries. "Kultura is reviving interest in true science in Russian society," says Nobel Prize winner Zhores Alferov. Some programs are devoted to the history and future application of scientific breakthroughs. And last, but not least, Kultura is the only channel that does not carry advertisements, and for this its audience is very grateful.
This is an idyllic ghetto, but it is still a ghetto into which television has driven the intelligentsia. Yet elements of aggressive mass culture are starting to break through into this refuge. For example, the channel is showing an increasing number of talk shows.
It remains to be seen how long Kultura will remain a unique channel in Russia. So far it does not have any rivals.
