“These are difficult times.” RTVI Communications Director - about channel cuts and a mysterious investor

RTVI Communications Director Nikita Stepanov. From personal archive

Reduced funding, dismissal of employees, frozen projects. RTVI, one of the iconic Russian-language channels in America, is getting used to the new reality. A little over a year ago, a new team came there, led by general producer Alexey Pivovarov. Previously, an unknown investor agreed to invest about $60 million in media development over three years. Four months ago, RTVI relaunched the TV channel and website. And just a couple of weeks ago, funding for the project unexpectedly dropped sharply. ForumDaily discussed what is happening on the channel now and what the future holds for it with RTVI Communications Director Nikita Stepanov.

The main question is: will the channel work, is it worth or is it not a question of closing it? What is happening on RTVI now?

The channel will certainly work the same way it worked for the previous 20 years of its existence. As Alexey Pivovarov said in his recent video message to RTVI viewers, there were different times in the life of the channel: there were both difficult and optimistic ones. Now, unfortunately, times are difficult. We were forced to make some changes to save the channel, but there is no talk of closing it. Another question is what form the broadcast part will be in. We are working on this now. I can say that boring TV series that our viewers have already watched 28 times will disappear from the air, many live programs from Moscow will appear - analytical, talk shows, etc. In a week and a half or two, we will be ready to announce what programs will appear , and in about a month viewers will be able to see them on air.

I saw that you have already removed the information from the site, for example, about the project “The other day in karaoke” with Leonid Parfenov. What large projects have you already closed or are you planning to close, and which ones will remain?

We have completely closed only the program of Victor Topaller. The rest are not closed, but frozen. In particular, those projects that are most sensitive to investment have been frozen. That the project “The other day in karaoke”, that the project “Here and there” is very demanding in terms of financing. They are now frozen, and we hope that after some time we will return to them.

Is there at least a rough understanding of how long they are frozen?

Unfortunately, the timing is not clear. We hope that the programs will be able to return in one format or another to our broadcast. It is more dependent on money.

What happens to the people who worked on the projects?

The story here is quite simple. Most of the programs that were aired by RTVI - “The Other Day at Karaoke”, “Here and There”, Victor Topaller’s program - were filmed at the request of the channel by various production companies. This is a normal practice for them when they film one season and then go to work on other projects. At the same time, those few RTVI employees who worked only on frozen projects remained on the channel. For example, Tikhon Dzyadko, the host of the show “Here and There,” became our correspondent in Washington.

And someone from the faces of the channel, except for Viktor Topaller, is leaving?

Well, look ... For example, Leonid Parfenov never worked on our channel. He shot the program on request. Of those individuals who were on the air and it was working on the channel, we had to say goodbye to Victor Topaller, Valery Kipelov and Elena Meshcheryakova.

You can orient at least approximately what is waiting for the viewers of your channel in the future: what programs, what formats? For example, what specific programs will be released from the Moscow studio?

There will be political and entertainment programs as well. A little later we will be ready to tell you more about the programs and formats. But already this Friday, the premiere of our new final analytical show “New Results” took place. This is such a unique combination of an expert conversation and special reports of the channel's journalists about the main events, facts and heroes of the outgoing week. Moscow, New York, Berlin and Jerusalem are directly connected. The presenters will offer their views on the main world news of the past week, discuss them from the point of view of the interests of their own countries, involve experts and newsmakers in the conversation, and the channel's journalists will present exclusive details of the events in special reports and live broadcasts from different parts of the world.

You will transfer the broadcast to the Moscow studio. How much do you plan to cover the events of American life?

We will definitely not reduce anything. The question is not that we will shift the focus to events in Russia - this is certainly not the case. The question is that we will broadcast mostly from a Moscow studio, which is much cheaper for us. But this is not a matter of content, specific programs or point of view. This is a purely technical question. If I hadn’t said that we were broadcasting from Moscow, I think the audience wouldn’t have noticed it.

Well, don't tell me. If the presenter lives not in America, but in Russia, he accordingly has a different level of immersion in American life, perhaps a different perception of events. If you are planning guests, then most likely they will also be from Russia; inviting someone from America to the studio will be difficult...

Firstly, for such cases there is Skype. Secondly, if we say that the American and Russian editorial staff may have different points of view, then for this we have daily planning meetings where everyone can discuss everything. Our task is to illuminate the global picture of the Russian-speaking world. And our audience is located all over the world: both in Israel and in Germany, in Russia and, of course, in the USA.

Reduction of people in the American studio still held. How massive was it? Can you tell how many people have cut and how many are left?

Quite a large number of people we have reduced. About 20 people in the American edition have reduced, about 15 people left.

You do not advertise who the main investor of the channel is. There are many rumors around his name - the lack of information gives rise to various speculations. Now that such a crisis situation has arisen, have you discussed with the investor that it might be worth calling him? Everyone is interested in the name of the person who was ready to invest $60 million in the development of the channel.

You know, we, like our other colleagues who do not name their investors, realized that the easiest way to put pressure on a TV channel or other media is through its main owner, shareholder, investor, etc. It is because of this that we we don't name any. I think the audience of the RTVI channel, located in Russia, has already seen that there is a certain pressure on the channel. For example, about a week ago on the Russia-24 TV channel, a 6,5-minute story about the dismissal of Viktor Topaller and the RTVI TV channel aired in the evening prime, which, to put it mildly, is surprising. It seems to us that such things cannot happen by themselves. With all due respect to Viktor Topaller, who is an iconic figure for the RTVI audience in America, I can say that his name is unknown in Russia.

And the plot of “Russia-24”, and certain messages in various anonymous Telegram-channels suggest that not everyone in the Russian government liked the changes that occurred on the channel RTVI.

Whom do you mean when you talk about the representatives of the Russian authorities who are or are trying to put pressure on the channel?

These are my assumptions, I can not give any specific names.

Has the situation cleared up somehow, why has the channel financing so abruptly stopped? And can you tell how much the budget has been reduced?

The budget has been cut substantially. Not dozens of times, of course, but significantly. I can't name the order of the numbers. Why did this happen? We were confronted with a fact, they said that, unfortunately, now there is a problem with financing. There are no claims to the management, to the management of the channel. It's not about us, it's just that the shareholder has such a situation. In addition, you need to understand that if you do something on television, then the result will be visible only after six months or a year, or even a year and a half. Everyone who works in this business certainly did not expect that in two months the channel would reach a billion people or something like that. Therefore, there are no claims to management, to the creative team.

Director of Communications RTVI Nikita Stepanov. From the personal archive. From the personal archive

Before he came to RTVI as general producer, Alexey Pivovarov said: “This is a TV channel that everyone knows, but which no one has seen.” Do you think that during the time your team has been working at RTVI, have you managed to change this perception?

Without false modesty I can say that I succeeded. We see it even elementary by Google-analytics, which has been especially pleasing to us lately.

Can you name the numbers that make you happy?

On our site in September there were more than half a million unique visitors, almost 2 million page views and, judging by the dynamics that we see, in October, we believe these figures will at least double.

How many visitors were on the site, for example, a year ago, when your team came to the channel?

Negligible. We can say that the site rather was not than he was. The audience of the RTVI site, at the time when the team came under the guidance of Alexey Pivovarov, was at the level of statistical error.

Do you have any channel numbers?

They are different, because there are separate measurements in Germany, in the Baltic States, there is a share of satellite consumption. Therefore, it is difficult to name one single figure.

Which program was the most rated on the channel?

“The other day at karaoke.” Moreover, we first launched this project on the Odnoklassniki social network - each live episode attracted more than a million viewers. This is a very impressive figure.

What have you accomplished over the past year that you are proud of?

First of all, we are proud of our digital. We came up with some extremely interesting stories, in our opinion. First, we reinvented TV in digital. If you go to our website, you will see that each news is accompanied by a short 30-45 second video. We call this format “leading” on demand" This is a separate process - after writing the news until the moment when the video is uploaded to the site, 5-7 minutes pass. We believe that we have invented a news approach to television on the Internet. Judging by the number of views (and there are impressive numbers), we understand that the format has come to a head, and people are consuming content in the way we, in fact, came up with it. Essentially, this is news with a human face. Any news on our website can be either read or watched as a video.

The second story is the “Infonoise” section on our website. In this column we analyze “fake” news, because in the era of fake news it is difficult to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. “Fake” news can be different. Some news is of no interest, because this is, relatively speaking, the 28th time they have started talking about Trump’s impeachment, or it is, indeed, not real - our journalists checked the news and it turned out that it was not true. Some stories are not news simply because they are trash. In short, in this section we explain in detail why sometimes those stories that occupy leading places in the Russian media are complete nonsense. This, you know, is such an educational function, and quite fun at the same time.

We have launched a number of other projects, but for their promotion, proper marketing, additional funding is needed. For example, our channel in Telegram, which is called “Round RTVI”. We are the first among all Russian media began to lay out the news in the format of a round video. We were asked for advice on how to do this, a variety of media outlets turned up, and even the Ministry of Sport of Russia.

Therefore, our main achievements at the moment are in digital. This is what we are proud of.

What do you think you have failed to do so far?

It’s quite difficult to talk about any global conclusions from the point of view of what failed, because television is always a long game. We restarted in June, now it’s October, so we can’t talk about any big failures.

Do you have any idea why the funding was reduced only a few months after the restart? Or is it just a financial question, and finances end when they end?

I am inclined to believe in the version that finances end when they run out. There were discussions on Facebook that they gave us 60 million dollars and we spent it all in one year. No, this is unrealistic. 60 million was an approximate figure for the investment program for 3 years and, of course, there is no talk of any 60 or even 20 million dollars this year. It was completely different money. Why this happened [cutting funding], we can only guess. Whether this was pressure on the shareholder, I don’t know.

That is, the investor did not explain to the channel staff what was happening, I understand correctly?

Well, he urged to hold on.

What are your expectations from the development of the channel for the coming year?

You know, we had expectations for the coming 3 of the year, but I had to, as you see, adjust them somewhat. We focus, as Aleksey Pivovarov said more than once, on digital, we have a program to develop our website, our social networks, to continue the development of the “leading on demand" Regarding terrestrial television, when we complete the formation of a new network with new programs, then we will more or less understand what to expect in the relatively long term. There is no super-long-term planning regarding the on-air appearance of the channel yet. What will certainly remain the same is our editorial policy. It will not undergo any changes in any way; we have objectively covered the news from both sides - as our slogan says - and we will continue to do so. There will be no one-sided coverage of events.

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Journalist Tikhon Dzyadko - why he left for America and why he wants to return to Russia

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