When will television "die out" and why is the audience shrinking by the millions?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Our television is dying. Its audience is inexorably shrinking at the rate of a million viewers a year. Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya MIA and RT TV channel, stated this with concern.

“And the audience that is not familiar with television,” she noted, “grows up at about the same rate and, in particular, becomes voters. Our state has relied on television for many years, and for many years television has been the main instrument for bringing information to society. But not now. Now the main television in Russia is YouTube. YouTube views are incomparable with watching other programs on television,”Simonyan said on the air of the“Results of the Week with Roman Babayan”program on the Moscow Talking radio station.

According to Simonyan, the state was not worried about creating its own instruments and the ability to use them to "reach out to the population in an era when these instruments were rapidly changing."

And she added that a whole generation has grown up in Russia that "have never seen or heard Putin."

“Where are they supposed to see and hear him? They see and hear him only in memes and cartoons,”she said.

Simonyan's words confirm the statistics. The leaders in the Russian television market - both in terms of share and coverage - continue to be Channel One, Russia1 and NTV. But, as RBC reported, citing data from the research company Mediascope, all three largest TV channels at the end of last year, the average daily share of the most general audience (viewers over four years old) decreased. “Russia 1” - by 0.29 pp, “First” - by 0, 32 pp, NTV - by 0.1 pp. This is a general market trend, last year the majority of large Russian channels showed negative dynamics, said Kirill Tanaev, director of the Institute of Contemporary Media.

According to TNS Russia data on the audience of the largest TV channels in 2016, its share of Channel One decreased from 14.3% to 13% over the year, the average daily reach - from 43% to 40.9%. In absolute terms, the average daily coverage of the country's main TV broadcaster decreased from 29.5 million people to 28.2 million. A similar story is with Rossiya1, the flagship TV channel of the VGTRK holding: the share decreased from 12.9% to 12.7%; coverage - from 40.2% to 38.4%; in terms of the number of viewers - from 27.6 million to 26.5 million. NTV also reduced its indicators: share - from 10.2% to 9.5%; coverage - from 32% to 30.4%; by the number of viewers - from 22 million to 21 million

As experts noted, this state of affairs is due to the general trend towards a decrease in on-air "television viewing", which has been observed in recent years on the largest Russian TV channels.

Remember how one of the characters in the film “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” said: “Television will turn the life of all mankind - nothing will happen: no cinema, no theater, no books, no newspapers. One continuous television”?

But so far neither cinema, nor theater, nor books, nor even newspapers have disappeared, and the future of television itself is already being called into question. According to the research data, the share of Russians who consider television the main source of information for themselves is steadily decreasing from year to year

What is the reason?

What does all this mean? This means that the state is losing control over society, especially over the segment of the young audience. Hence all these youth riots, "walks along the boulevards", the appearance of "dissent" at liberal rallies, where they call for destructive Maidans of students and schoolchildren, etc.

Is the only reason why they say that young people and part of the adult public have gone to the Internet and prefer to get news from there and from social networks, because it is in trend today, and does not include any more "box"? Obviously, one of the main reasons is the steady decline in the quality of the transmissions of our main channels, which has been talked about for many years now.

"Century" has written more than once about the problems of our television, about constantly flaring up scandals there, about dirty talk shows about divorce of movie stars, about their adventures, about low-standard humor "below the belt", about failed and vulgar programs.

Even the popular program “What? Where? When? One of her former idols, Alexander Druz, was caught in an unseemly act.

Year after year, violent protests from indignant viewers cause New Year's shows on First. It even went as far as protest petitions collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures online. Indignation is caused by the dominance at New Year's concerts and "Lights" of the same showmen and boring and aging pop stars who have sore everybody for a long time

A special feeling of awkwardness arises when in the hall, listening to their performances, the same "stars" dressed to smithereens sit and, strainingly pretending to be delighted, applaud their colleagues. One gets the impression that the elite get-together entertains itself on the screen, completely forgetting who television should serve.

"It's just hell!" - with these words the popular singer Slava criticized the "dirty" talk shows on Russian television today. According to the singer, who spoke sharply about this after Maria Shukshina, these programs dishonor the honor and memory of great artists.

The reason for this was the next release of the program by Andrey Malakhov. Addressing the popular presenter, the singer demanded that he stop, since everything that happens on the air of his program is “just hell”. In general, Slava called "Hell" everything that happens on modern Russian TV. The singer notes that at the same time Malakhov makes a smart face, showing everyone that he is trying to solve someone's problem. But this is not the case. “You just drive us into depression and filth! Andryusha, stop! " - the artist exclaims emotionally.

Dirty "food"

But, of course, this is not about Malakhov, he only with a charming smile pronounces on the air what others have written for him. Here is what the popular satirist Mikhail Zadornov said about our television at one time, who knew well what he was talking about:

“Modern programs are created by… producers! All of their companies are collectively called "productions", that is, "made for sale." They call television broadcasts by the professional word “product”. And they sell it in the same way as sausage, popcorn and Pepsi are sold in stores …

Now I’ll tell you something about these producers. And you yourself make a conclusion: can they create a healing "product" or not? One of the producers, leaving a few years ago with his family for permanent residence in Israel, cut out appendicitis for his children in advance, because in case it needs to be done in Israel, "it will come out a little more expensive." One of the very famous producers and TV presenters, who influenced the development of our television, gave an interview to the journalist in a restaurant, where he called her, and ate the most delicious dishes for an hour and a half during the conversation, but did not even offer her a glass of mineral water …

When, finally, will our viewers understand that the producers of modern Russian television consider the Russian people to be cattle? And that they cannot create a “product” about love, honor and dignity because they know nothing about it

Their programs are based on what is close to them: on stinginess, scandals, vulgarity, foul language and … cowardice! The vulgarity and cruelty on the air is a manifestation of the cowardice of the producers and their pop slaves. That is why vulgarity has replaced wit!

Gokhshtein is in charge of entertainment programs on the Second. He often says to the artists the following phrase: "I know what the Russian people need today!" When young authors came to him and brought an application for a humorous television program without vulgarity, he frankly asked: “Where is the vulgarity?” Otherwise, they say, there will be no rating …

That is why in all programs related to show business, we see the same faces. Producers don't need young talent. To spin them for a long time. Profits can be obtained from old people immediately. They are reliable brands. Creating new ones is troublesome and risky. Therefore, whatever the program, the brand of the gray mare! , - concluded Zadornov.

More sex and violence?

Earlier, the head of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst, and colleagues invariably responded to all justified criticism addressed to them - there are ratings, which means there is no point in changing anything. Bearing in mind, in particular, the New Year's programs - they say, no one watches them in full, what difference does it make what to show? And so "People hawala". But now there are no ratings anymore, the viewer refuses to “hawala” what is being strenuously imposed on him. But no change is visible.

Speaking recently at the congress of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters, Konstantin Ernst said what his channel intends to do to stop the "flight" of the viewer. However, he did not offer anything original.

So he, in particular, said that the channel intends to release a "product" which, in his words, will be quite radical, "sometimes with violence, more explicit sex, on which a version for classic television will be made through editing, and a director's cut, which will be with all the excesses from the point of view of classic television."

In other words, apart from violence and "more" explicit sex ", our viewer, who has been fed up with all this for a long time, has nothing more to offer? He has no idea that in our schools they have already begun to kill, and that elderly university professors are being cut into pieces by their young mistresses?

It's time to clean the "Augean stables"

So one of the main reasons for the decline of our television is also that our main channels have been run by the same people with not very demanding taste for many years. And the results of their activities, as the statistics show, are deplorable. And therefore, perhaps it is worth starting by adopting foreign experience that is useful in this matter? There, the heads of state television channels are not permanent employees, but people who work under a contract for a strictly limited period of three to four years. There is a constant rotation of both those who manage the TV channels and those who speak on them. Otherwise, creative stagnation is inevitable. A kind of "television mafia" has formed, which does not let "outsiders" in. How else to call what has developed now on our state television, where the same people who captured it in the tumultuous 90s have been sitting for decades? They show themselves to themselves. And to be even more precise, the liberal get-together that has developed on and around the channel is busy with self-service and promoting themselves to their loved ones. Isn't it time to remember the viewer?

After all, he often goes where they show something else. As Simonyan said, “the most pro-Russian, most patriotic agenda of such platforms has developed in the public Telegram channels. There are a lot of top authors, top channels that are patriotic, our positions, in contrast to the same YouTube, where in the daytime with fire you will not find a person who, as they say now, is ready to "not get greasy" and support anything, related to the state”.

The alarming problem associated with the fact that people stop watching the country's main TV channels, as we have already noted, is not only a matter of economics or demography, as some believe. This is a problem of national importance

Losing its audience on central channels, the state loses its ability to influence the masses, the ability to convey to them the policy it pursues. Polls show that young people in our country often not only do not know the history of Russia, but even what is happening in it today. And this is already a problem of national security. Isn't it time to start a serious cleaning of the "Augean stables" of our television?