In TASS special project Top Officials, head of Russia’s Channel One Konstantin Ernst talks about television during crisis, Russia's most popular shows and relationship with other major TV bosses.
─ You are continuing to receive congratulations on the channel’s 25th anniversary?
─ Everyone who wanted to say something, managed to do it... I am very reserved when it comes to these dates and numbers. Even based on formal reasons, the real anniversary is a multiple of 25.
─ Then, these were the preliminary results. Did the crisis get in the way of examining them?
─ The crisis did not affect just us. All of us live in the same time frame, some are closer to the epicenter, some are further away. Those who are closer have a bit of a disadvantage, they get hit with the aftershock harder. But you see farther and deeper. The media in general and television in particular, feel the approach of the problems before the Finance Ministry does. The slowing down and then the decline in advertising begins 7-8 months before the actual crisis hits. The companies are seeing a decline in retail and they cut the budgets for advertising in the media. We were already preparing for the full-scale inevitable course of events last spring, and in April 2014, we completed the first round of meetings and talks about reducing the cost of content. Even before the end of the year, we reduced the staff by 10%. Now we minimize all kinds of spending, so that we no longer have to affect the staff.
─ How has it all affected the quality of what goes on air?
─ For now, it really hasn’t. That is how television works, that first you invest money into something, and then get the product. For now, we are running TV series that were financed a year or two ago. We’ll get hit for real in the second half of 2016 and later.
─ What about the programs?
─ That will happen sooner. Already this fall. In January, advertising on the channel dropped by 37%, year-on-year. Now the situation has somehow stabilized, but the figures are not encouraging. And our advertisers have nothing to say about the prospects for the second half. And I am not talking about the exchange rate of the dollar and the euro, I am talking about the fall of the ruble. Add to this the significantly change in the loan rates. Previously, the channels would take out short-term loans, because the money for advertising does not come in too evenly. With such a high interest rate on loans, we have to forget about it. As a result, I have thirty ready-to-launch projects with casting, with film crews gathered, but I cannot give these people a go-ahead, since I can’t see a schedule of how I will be able to equally fund all of them.
As soon as the cycle is broken, expenses rise. Hollywood movies, as you know, are expensive, but quickly filmed. Every lost day costs a huge amount. In the film industry uniformity and clarity of the financing are very important. Actors are signed on, most of them are employed by theaters, we have to make precise schedules for equipment lease, pavilions, other objects. People begin production, they have to withstand daily work. If you have a TV series, and you do not film twelve minutes of useful material per day, your budget is bursting at the seams …
It’s already clear that the crisis is for two years. At best. By the end of this year TV viewers will see no quality deterioration. We will continue running TV series made in the affluent years. The shows will be simpler but the difference will not be striking.
─ The audience will not spill over to its neighbors on the air?
─ The big crisis affects everyone about the same. Television will become poorer, but people will not stop watching it, quite the contrary - people will have less options of how to spend their free time. Now, they less often go to the shops, theaters, restaurants and concerts, they spend more time at home. No, the position of television will remain strong, even if we take into account that it will not be as expensive and as luxurious. I am almost certain that the audience of the major television channels will grow. Another thing is that it's hard to capitalize, there may be more rating points than advertising offers, but we're not working just for the money.
─ Do you remember previous similar recession?
─ We had 2008. And in 1998, when Channel One, was also called ORT, people were not paid salaries for months, all working against the word of honor. We re-edited and showed series Shadows Disappear at Noon and Eternal Call. Necessity is the mother of invention! The TV advertising market collapsed then to $100 million for all Russian television, it fell by seven times. Compare with nearly $5 billion, which all channels collected in recent years. There is a difference, you see.
─ And if lenders require that Channel One pay? The amount must have gotten pretty big by now, you owe content producers for 2014 about 7 billion rubles, a year ago there was 6 billion and a few pennies.
─ We are in dialogue with our producers. We have to size down, and slash prices in the contracts. For the sake of business, many are reduced to no profit at all. We have good stamina, and it is better to get through the tough times together. We’ll fall together, and we’ll rise together.
─ By the way, I wanted to ask is anyone chasing after you? Channel One keeps playing Not Gonna Get Us. Even the Olympic Games were opened with that song.
─ This slogan is out conscious hooliganism, and has long been our brand. And at the opening ceremony of the Games, we have chosen it as a healthy provocation to bring down the excessive pathos. But as a result, it was a prophecy - no one did get us. Life is a type of a race. Moving is necessary. Better, if it is moving forward. And if you started running, better follow the Not Gonna Get Us principle.
─ I heard that your salary for taking part in preparing the Olympic Games cost one ruble!
─ That’s true. But it wasn’t really work. It would be silly to assume that professing your love should have a price tag.
─ Let’s go back to the races. In your opinion, have we been running in the right direction this past year?
─ On an emotional level, the Olympic Games told the world that Russia is taking the world power status back. And it’s not just about the number of gold medals. I think well of conspiracy theories, and can’t help but note that heightened phase of the Maidan protests in Kiev coincided with the height of the Olympic Games in Sochi.
─ But as a result, Russia became a hostage of the situation in Ukraine?
─ You know, sometimes you face challenges, that you can’t avoid, otherwise, you have to throw up your hands and capitulate. But historically speaking, Russia doesn’t have a tendency to do that.
─ The question isn’t just about the country, but about you personally as well.
─ Do you want to hear that I feel bad that the external political events that took place during the Olympic Games and after, did not allow us to fully enjoy the triumphant afterglow? I would lie if I said no.
Could Russia have acted differently under the circumstances? I’m sure that it couldn’t have.
You see, it is an existential problem. We must admit that we live in an era of changes. The rules of the twentieth century expired, the old model of relations between the countries ─ political, economic – have worn out and new ones have not been outlined. We need to sit down and negotiate. Everything is happening before our eyes. Certainly, it is better to watch from the sidelines, from a distance, but sometimes, you don’t get to choose. God decides who and when gets to be born.
─ But for now, Ukraine has forbidden you to enter its territory, declaring you, in fact, the enemy of the state…
─ What has happened upsets me but doesn’t surprise me all that much. I love Ukraine, especially Kiev, and really dislike the current Kiev authorities... But with all the violations of all the moral and energy balances, they can’t last a long time. People are not prepared to live in a hassle like that for a long time. Even if they don’t think so now. Anyone strives internally towards a stable existence, and these authorities have one way of staying in power and that’s the continuation of hostilities. But this is a short-lived option. Or no option at all.
─ According to what the television is showing on both sides of the barricades, we are far from peace. But people are watching....How much has the political program aspect of Channel One gone up?
─ The news segment increased by 30%, and the number of socio-political programs doubled. The television meets the demands. If a topic becomes important, we have to talk about it.
─ Has it been recommended that you give more attention to Ukraine?
─ No, it is the initiative of the channel. People are afraid of the unknown, they want to understand what is happening in the world and with the nearest neighbors. During our day-time program “Time will Tell” we often touch upon the Ukrainian subject and it has record ratings for its time slot. In an anxious situation, it is necessary to talk through the difficult questions, explain them, remove the phantom fears.
─ Does the phone wake you up in the middle of the night much, with extraordinary matters?
─ Usually, it has to do with huge emergencies or high-profile crimes. When our cameraman Tolya Klyan was killed in Donbas. When Boris Nemtsov was shot dead. When the fire broke out in the Novodevichy Convent it was me who called first as I accidentally drove past, when everything was in flames. Our team sent a van out and made a live broadcast.
On Beating Lapin’s record, indulgency and The Voice
On competitors, defectors, Galkin, Urgant, Nagiyev
On a bad mysticism, Listiev, black leather jacket, prophecy Vanga and Viking
On TEFI, Oscar, races through late-night Moscow and the burning tower
On Immortal Regiment march, Eurovision contest and Joseph Brodsky
─ Do you know, Konstantin, that you have already beaten what seemed like an eternal record of the Great Wizard Sergei Lapin, who headed Ostankino for 15 years, from 1970 – 1985. You’ve been the head of Channel One for longer…
─ Yeah, I was just thinking about that.
─ How so?
─ That it is strange. Lapin worked on television at a stable time, not to be compared with ours. But, I was never after setting records. I’ve never had the slightest intention of setting longevity records in my line of business. I have never clung to this chair with fingers numb with strain in an attempt to squeeze the benefits of my position to the last drop.
─ Have you ever tried to leave, on your own accord?
─ Thought about it a few times, but where else would I be able to find a job, so that I could constantly be within the volcano, and not miss anything important? I am never bored here. Although sometimes, it is very difficult. So, I’ve had the thought, but never had an attempt.
─ But now, after the Olympic Games, you must have an indulgency!
─ You know, our church doesn’t give out indulgencies. There are projects, the results of which aren’t visible for years on end, but here everything is evaluated in real time. Here and now. And it is not evaluated by one person, but by millions of people. And you can’t make a deal with them behind the curtains, or by phone. They see everything. And your value is determined by what you did yesterday, literally yesterday.
And today, in the morning, you have another trial run. Didn’t make the time - that’s your problem.
─ Lapin had the party line as a guide to action, and you have to look back to the Kremlin and keep an eye on the ratings, and not forget about your own creative ambitions...
─ Many factors must be considered, that’s true. It’s somewhat similar to the Formula 1 race. There are very few people that can remain in the top positions during the course of many seasons. And it’s not just because the drivers lose their responsiveness or physical form. The responsibility crushes, it emotionally drains you. Emotional burnout is not a figment of a psychologist’s imagination, but a reality. Television is the same race. Push the pedal all the way to the floor, otherwise it makes no sense to go to the start.
─ On more than one occasion you’ve compared television to a factory canteen. If we continue with the analogy then what the menu has to offer each day, depends on the head of the canteen.
─ I am not nobility either.
─ Depends how you look at it. Your father was a member of the Academy of Sciences. An intellectual family from St. Petersburg…
─ That never got in the way of me being able to feel the demands and the mood of our large audience. I know what an average viewer likes to watch.
─ And what do you prefer to consume?
─ The range of what I have to see, read, say and make a note of is very wide. At home in the living room I have accumulated deposits of books, magazines and newspapers that I do not have time during the daily turnover to review. From time to time, I go through these piles in hopes that an article or a photograph may possibly give me an idea for a new television series or a project. I cut them out, put them in files, like Gobseck, compiling facts, digging them up. Most likely, I will never go back to these papers, but it is important to be constantly strewing in the information pot. Several times a week I hold staff meetings, where I have to tell employees what to do, and that is impossible, if I don’t recharge my batteries on a regular basis.
─ But it is logical to assume that your personal preferences lie somewhere in the realm of City Slickers.
─ I haven’t cheap snobbery within me - one show is for the masses, the other for the elite, for the chosen few. I am the one hundred forty millionth fraction of the nation, and I say that with the least bit of bluffing. Of course, each program has its own target audience. Every month I meet with the group that does the Let Them Talk show. The show is full of professionals, who sometimes, in my opinion, get a little bit caught up in the game. I respect them, however, I often argue with them, and forbid them from taking on certain topics that are contrary to my understanding of the limits of what’s permissible at Channel One.
I am just as interested in the City Slickers as I am in Let’s Get Married. I watch everything. And the Field of Wonders (Russian Wheel of Fortune, ed.) that turns 25 this year. That’s a real anniversary! The show has long gone beyond the “guess the letter.” That part of the game has become the necessary hoops that you have to jump through before the wonderful opportunity to present your gifts that you’ve brought from home to the dear host, Leonid Yakubovich.
─ What was it like to close SpotlightParisHilton at its peak?
─ It was an artificially interrupted song. Not by us. Nikolai Senkevich, who at the time headed Gazprom Media, used a more or less plausible excuse not to allow Svetlakov and Martirosyan to work with Channel One.
─ You could have found replacement.
─ Then it would have been a different show. You know, TV people are rarely able to withstand the temptation of squeezing all that they can out of a successful project. You’ve seen the material through, you should really be wrapping it up, but you are constantly putting the end off, bleeding it dry. And here, circumstances allowed us to finish off the show at the peak of popularity. But, the viewers think fondly of it. Recently, we were talking about maybe launching a nationwide competition to replace the hosts of the Spotlight. Maybe, we’ll do that soon.
─ Did you understand everything about The Voice (Russian version of American Idol, ed.) right away?
─ Honestly, no. The idea of revolving chairs did not seem that original to me. The big difference between The Voice and other music projects is that there was the blind audition factor. Yuri Aksuta believed in the project right away, and I am used to trusting our best music producer. It turned out that The Voice is not only about singing. It’s about chance, choice, luck, and that is what made it successful with the audience. It is also about the fact that Russia got rid of the feeling that it is a country that does not sing. And it’s interesting to see how the coaches were affected by the show. Dima Bilan drastically changed the way people saw him, he turned out to be a deep and kind individual, not just a boy that jumps up and down on Eurovision. Pelageya wasn’t all that well-known in the beginning, and became everyone’s sweetheart. Leonid Agutin showcased the talent of a wise teacher, and Alexander Gradsky secured himself in the status of a guru and a patriarch. We invited these four people, because we believed in their professional abilities as coaches, but during the course of the show, they created images for themselves, that without a doubt will remain with them the rest of their lives. This quartet was our big lucky strike. And now, we are in a horrible situation, because I made the decision to fire the previous coaches, and now we have to look for new ones. We are not going to look for people to fit the image of previous coaches, instead of Gradsky, Bilan, Agutin or Pelageya. The next coaches will be people who are different from them. We have to start with a clean slate. We know that copies are always worse than the original, and a good indication of that are the attempts of our colleagues to adapt our shows on their channels.
─ What is your attitude towards this kind of borrowing?
─ Like to laudatory reviews, tribute and recognition. There are clones out there that are mirror images of our projects. We have Let Them Talk hosted by Andrei Malakhov, and NTV put out a show called Talking and Showing, Vladimir Kulistikov has a good sense of humor. On Rossiya-1 there’s a similar format titled Live on Air, that will never be able to get the same ratings as Let Them Talk. Because the secret is not in the format, but in the people that make it possible. You can’t buy at the pharmacy what the Good Lord did not give you...
─ What stops the three gentlemen, Ernst, Dobrodeyev and Kulistikov, from getting together and hashing out questionable issues?
─ We get together and we hash out. And often we make a deal. And often we don’t. Everyone has his own point of view, and I am not so naive as to think that my opinion is the ultimate truth. It’s just how I see it. They probably see it differently. More so, I think that tough competition stimulates rapid development of the industry. It can often be unpleasant when it comes to tactics, so much, that it can really tick you off, but strategically speaking, it is all for the common good. For example, for the last three months, there was a competing time slot during the children’s version of The Voice. You know, there is a training approach in boxing that’s called ‘fighting the shadow”...
─ Could you go into a little more detail, about the relationship between the big bosses on the Russian television arena?
─When it comes to work, we have a working relationship, but privately, it’s a friendly relationship. But, we try not to mix the two.
─ At the same time, no one could say that the counter-programming is not a thing.
─ It’s always been a thing, and remains so. Channels produce a commercial product and have to think about how to take viewers from one another. But, we always try to be good about it. If our colleagues get up in arms, we can defend ourselves.
─ However, your show One in One, turned into Perfect Match (Russian version of Your Face Sounds Familiar ed.) after which, a lawsuit was filed against the channel.
─ This is unprecedented in the history of Russian television, a channel had the first season of the show lost the second season to another channel. One person attributed all the achievements of the One in One, totally ignoring that the whole team from Channel One worked on it, and the success of the project among the audience is the 99% merit of the team. He immediately decided to capitalize on the success, by selling the show to our competitors for next season. For a lot of money. He added on to the project a contract for an indigestible television product. Alas, colleagues agreed to the proposal. It is unlikely that they are now happy about it.
─ So that means that the defector is not typical?
─ By treachery and stupidity it is unique, although it happens not for the first time. I would put together a new project, and then would find out at the last moment that the program will be released on another channel simply because the producer was bought out. We lost hosts that way as well. Although, their careers after that did not go as planned...
─ Who do you mean?
─ Maxim Galkin, for example. We brought Maxim into television, and it was a risky idea to make him a host of the popular show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. All the following years, producers and the screenplay team actively worked with Galkin on his New Year’s programs that were unbelievably popular. As a result, he became the number one television star. And then, decided to leave without even telling me about it.
─ Alla Pugacheva followed suit after that, leaving the channel after Galkin?
─ Pugacheva never belonged to a specific channel. And Maxim’s exit did not affect our complicated and deep-rooted relationship. And I’m not upset with Maxim, at most I can feel sorry for him, he had an incredible career. Originally, we planned the Late Night Show for Maxim, not for Ivan Urgant. I thought that Galkin was the first of the new, but as it turned out he was the last of the old. And Ivan became the first of the new.
─ Is he measuring up?
─ Certainly. He is closely involved with the program team. Not only as a host, but also as a producer. An artist is an individual creature, but a producer by definition cannot be selfish. Ivan is progressing. And it did not all happen overnight, we tried several different formats. We were looking at different formats, and he really came into his own at the SpotlightParisHilton.
It was always a process. For example, Dima Nagiyev reached new heights on The Voice. He was good on Big Race, The Survivor, he was successful in several sitcoms on STS, but he really became himself on The Voice. It all fell into place, the project, the professional qualities, the host genre. There are many potential stars out there, but only one shoots out. It’s magic.
─ And you at one time went through the euphoria of public recognition?
─ In the early nineties there were few notable programs, just after the first series of The Matador, people began to recognize me on the streets. I enjoyed this for short time, for a year or two, I appeared on the covers of all the magazines, it tickled my vanity, and then, I quickly calmed down, as it turned out that fame did nothing for me.
─ On the occasion of the 20th anniversary, Channel One repeated The Matador dedicated to the carnival in Venice and bullfighting in Pamplona. How does it feel?
─ It wasn’t my idea, as you might have guessed. My colleagues insisted on it.
─ And you, modestly looked down and agreed to it?
─ I modestly looked down, and told them which episode to show first. That was the last The Matador that I did. I already told the story, that we finished filming the show, an hour before we found out that Vlad Listiev was killed in Moscow. It’s bad mojo, but at the final lead-out that we filmed at the San Marco Square, I talked much about death, since the Carnival is directly linked to this image, and Venice, the city that goes under water, that many people associate with dying Europe ... We interrupted the shooting schedule and flew to Moscow the next day.
At that moment, I could not imagine how my life would change in the near future. I had no plans of becoming neither the chief producer of the channel, let alone become its director general.
─ Just like you had to give up your favorite biker jacket.
─ I came to the first editorial meeting wearing it. But the free style rocker look puzzled the high office dwellers, whom I had to visit due to my work obligation. It wouldn’t let me achieve the purpose of my visits. So I soon cut my hair a little shorter, changed my biker jacket for a civilized suit, although I could never get used to the tie. It strangles me.
─ Did you miss being on air? Some say, that being on TV is like being hooked on drugs, that it’s a habit that is impossible to kick.
─ In December 1994, I decided to get away from TV, where I once wandered to by accident. I made this decision voluntarily and consciously, having thought that five years of experience were enough. Beforehand I warned my colleagues that I would do a few series of The Matador and ─ good-bye. I was going to shoot a feature film at Mosfilm studios.
─ What film?
─ It’s working title was Catatonia or The Position of the Bodies. It is a story that I wrote after meeting Vanga.
─ When did that happen?
─ I had a Bulgarian friend who worked at a local TV station, and I came to visit her in Sofia. The friend arranged for an interview with Baba Vanga, but the director fell ill on the eve of the shoot, and she asked if I could come with her, just in case. I went to this interview with a skeptical mindset on all the stories about Vanga’s prophecies, and treated them as legends for overly ecstatic people.
At the beginning of the conversation, I did not say a word, and then Vanga asked, "Why is the Russian silent?" Although no one told her what country I was from. She told me to sit down, gave me a lump of sugar, after a while took it away and asked, “What do you want to know?” Nothing, I told her. Why, she asked. I don’t want to look into the future, I said. You don’t believe me, she said. And then, she told me things about myself that she couldn’t have found out anywhere, not even from the KGB. What she said was 100% spot on. Of course, that impressed me.
Vanga repeated the question. What do you want to know, she said. I was stunned and repeated “nothing.” Since I didn’t want to hear any version of my future, I decided to change the subject and unexpectedly said, “You had a visit from actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov, you told him about Yuri Gagarin, about the fact that Tikhonov did not give him a watch...” And then for some reason I asked, “When did Gagarin die?"
After a pause, she said, he died in spring. I said yes, he died in the spring of 1968. She shook her head, no, last spring. It was the summer of 1989... So, Gagarin lived another twenty years? It shocked me so much that when I returned to Moscow, I immediately sat down and wrote the script, which explains why Gagarin could have died in the spring of 1989.
But there was no possibility to shoot that film in the late 1980’s, at that time, the movie scene was falling apart, and the situation improved by the mid-1990s. I already made a deal with Mosfilm and everything, but then a force majeure intervened.
─ So, what is with the screenplay?
─ It is inside my desk drawer, waiting for better times. I hope that I will be able to make that movie someday. Worst case scenario, be a producer for it. Fyodor Bondarchuk asked me for it before shooting The 9th Company.
─ The producer risks with his money, but the director risks with his name.
─ I’ve never been afraid to take on responsibility. And never hid behind anyone. In the modern film world, the producer is responsible for the film in equal parts with the director, if not more than the director.
─ But you know just how many people will line up to criticize the directorial debut of Konstantin Ernst.
─ Frankly speaking, I could care less. I am aware of what I am capable and what I am not capable of. I try not to do what I am not good at, and I don’t take on what turns out badly. I can direct a film, but right now, this ambition has gone, today I am more interested in being a producer.
To spend a year or two on a film is a luxury that I cannot afford. If I get a burning desire to direct some scenes, I go to the set and get involved in the process, recently I did just that. Anatoly Maximov and I are now producing a historical saga called The Viking, and Andrei Kravchuk is directing it.
Some may suspect conjuncture is this plot - Crimea, Korsun, the baptism of Rus, but the project has been in the development for seven years, it had twice run, twice we had to slow it down, now we’re making the third attempt. We had to abandon part of what we planned. We had to sacrifice some western technologies, cut several difficult staged scenes, did not invite foreign stars. It’s okay, we’ll get by with our own.
─ Danila Kozlovsky plays Prince Vladimir?
─ And he does it brilliantly, surprising us with his dedication. In early March we filmed the scene after the battle. Make it so there was knee-deep mud inside the fort, the crew had to get through it in high rubber boots. It was terribly cold, snowing. We discussed the episode in which the lead, Kozlovsky, lies on the ground near the fire, after killing several people, and tries to understand and overcome what he has done. In that situation, a person is likely to sit in a fetal position, unconsciously returning to the most stable state in life. Danila listened to it all and said, okay, I will stay barefoot then. And a real blizzard began. We were shooting the scene from a drone, lifting the camera high above the ground. We made six versions, and then, had to rub our actor down with vodka.
─ When are you planning to show the film?
─ More than a year from now. We just finished the Moscow part, and moved on to Crimea. You’re smiling, but originally we were planning to film it in Crete, which has a huge studio for water scenes, that is where the Titanic was shot. But now, we can’t afford it.
─ But you hit the bull's eye with Tauridia.
─ You know, seven years ago, no one could have predicted the Crimean situation. While our critics, of course, will connect it with the political situation. I don’t care. If the movie turns out to be good, neither blasphemy, nor praise will harm it. The film is not about the Vikings, but about the Russians, about who we are, where we came from. If you want, to some extent, it is the adaptation of The Tale of Bygone Years. When asked about who wrote the script, you can say Nestor the Chronicler.
─ Who suggested the idea to begin with?
─ My friend and co-producer Anatoly Maksimov is a linguist, an expert on ancient Russian texts. He had long cherished the idea ...
─ I’m beginning to understand why the TEFI television awards are pushed aside in your office and the film awards like the Nika and the Golden Eagle are at the forefront. All you are missing is an Oscar.
─ I was already nominated for an Oscar with Alexander Petrov, for the cartoon My Love. I was sitting in the center of the hall during the ceremony. We thought for the Golden Globe with Alexei Uchitel. Yes, it would be nice to get it, but I don’t have this super task in mind. I’m not ready to give my life for it. At the least for the reason that the majority of these prestigious awards are often the result of the subjective, rather the artistic decision. However, the Oscars of the last two years are Gravity and Birdman. These are great films. I tried several times to watch Birdman at the movie theater, but couldn’t do it, finally got the DVD, got home from work, turned it on….and pressed pause in the middle of the film. I decided to extend the enjoyment, and postpone it until the next evening.
─ You’re a Phaeacian!
─ Too bad, there are few reasons for this.
But my TEFIs are in place. I don’t think that I will be able to tell you how many of them are strictly mine, but Channel One has 215 Orpheuses and no one has more than we do. That is my pride. A ton and a half of bronze.
The TEFI has a glorious history, I hope that it will continue just as bright. May be not so hyped up, more healthy. In the first fifteen years, its ambitions went over the top. Heart-wrenching emotions interfered with objectivity. There was a famous case where a ceremony was held at the Arts Theatre, and Channel One did not receive any awards, although we were represented in all nominations. Rather, we were given one by mistake, then we had to return it. Allegedly there was a mistake during the vote count. It was a recognition of our success, albeit in a very strange manner.
─ Did you answer your offenders?
─ Why? "But the defeat from victory you shouldn’t distinguish yourself…” I very much hope that the new stage of TEFI awards will get rid of these heightened emotions, and will begin doing what needs to be done - judge entries impartially and fairly. Let the winners have all the emotions.
─ Do you remember what you felt when you received the first Orpheus?
─ It was for “Old songs about what’s important.” To boot, I was hosting the ceremony. My partner was supposed to be Pugacheva, but she cancelled, saying she was feeling ill. I was caught off guard and called Irina Zaitseva, who was then working on NTV and asked “Irina, you are going to the ceremony, right? And you are probably wearing an evening gown. Come a little earlier, you’ll be my co-host.” I’m still grateful that she agreed to it.
My parents were in the audience that night. And I saw how important it was for them that I received an award. On the inside, my father was really against the fact that I quit biology, although on the outside, he tried not to show it. And my mother didn’t talk to me for two years, she thought it was a stupid thing to have done. I ruined my career as a scientist, turned down a trip to England. Anyway, I came up to them with the award, and said that it was for them.
─ You even celebrated New Year in Ostankino, editing those “Old Songs about What’s Important”?
─ Those who put together the New Year shows on television don’t think of December 31st as a holiday.
. Same here. First, you spend a lot of long hours preparing the project, then you sit there and look at the ratings, to see who got more points - you or your competitors?
There was a terrible story with those “Old Songs”. On the early morning of December 31, our director Vasily Pichul disappeared from the Mosfilm editing studio. He was so tired from all the sleepless hours, that his mind checked out of the game. He left the editing studio and never came back. But we hadn’t done the final sound version, only the natural sounds were picked out. And I remind you, its 11 am on December 31. There is no director, everyone is lost. I know that there is no magic force that could voice over a musical film that is going to run for three and a half hours, that is several weeks’ worth of work…
We started working in two studios. I kept running back and forth between them and sound engineers. At some point, I realized that under favorable circumstances, we can finish in time to show it in the European part of Russia. I returned to the Ostankino, gathered a meeting, and announced that the New Year's show is delayed, so that the satellite can broadcast other shows, while announcing that the “Old Songs” will be shown after midnight Moscow time.
And again, I rushed back to Mosfilm. At 10 pm, we found out that there is no extra VCR, necessary for the transfer of the already edited material. Rather, there is one, but it is in a closed studio. I asked in which studio, then, I got a running start and knocked down the door in three kicks. The rest was all about mechanics. We finished transferring the material at twenty to twelve. Those who know me, could testify that I like to ride fast, but I don’t think that I’ve ever gone that fast. My driver got us from Mosfilm to Ostankino in 12 minutes.
─ Is the head of Channel One entitled to have his car furnished with a special flashing blue light?
Some time ago I along with Dobrodeyev and Kulistikov turned in our lights, even before their use became officially restricted. But even if I had one on that New Year’s Eve, I doubt that we would have gotten there any faster. I think that we probably set a street racing record of some sort. I was holding the VHS cassette with the edited version in my hands, and Luydmila Volkova, who was the channel’s chief editor that night, kept softly saying to me over the phone “Konstantin, just don’t worry and don’t be upset. It will all turn out well. We’ll make it and we’ll show the movie.” I ran into the studio at 11:55 p.m. Just like in that Lyudmila Gurchenko song. I put the VHS tape in, made sure that the quality was good, and only after that I was able to relax. I’ve never had a more euphoric New Year, neither before, nor after. I walked around the studio with a bottle of champagne, toasting with everyone. I avoided being that guy that robbed the entire country of the promised New Year show. I experienced something quite similar many years later in Sochi, when the Olympic Torch lit up. Life sometimes gives us megalomaniac opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to dream of. Like “have you ever fallen from the Ostankino tower?”
─ You saw it burn.
─ Oleg Dobrodeyev was the chief of the tower then, and he and I were the last two people who came out of it alive. We got to the very top, because no one could figure out what was the cause of the fire. And we were coming down the metal buckles of the inner cylinder. Melting plastic was drizzling down, Oleg even has burn marks on his hand. And then, we came down on the last working elevator. When the doors opened, we met a senior firefighter, who ran into the cabin with a rolled up tarp, begging the elevator-operator to go up with him. She was clearly afraid, but said “I’ll see how far I can get you.” A minute later, the elevator stopped. They both died, the firefighter and the young woman. Every day when I pass the tower, I think of them… We were there three days straight, slept in Ostankino. My office was the firefighting headquarters.
So, in twenty years, there were different and difficult times…
─ Now, time for a postscript. We’ve discussed Channel One’s anniversary in great detail, but haven’t yet said a word about “the holiday that brings tears to one’s eyes.”
─ Victory Day always has a special meaning, but this time the review of troops and the ceremonial march-past in Red Square was not the most emotional event, though. The Immortal Regiment procession by Muscovites and city guests, who walked along the city’s main streets and across Red Square carrying photographs of their grand- and great-grandparents was in focus. Few had expected that in 2015 half a million would take to the streets in Moscow alone on this occasion. Modern TV’s technical resources possess a unique power of expression. We planted our cameras at different places, including one on board a helicopter. The bird’s eye view was stunning. Had all of our cameras been located lower, we would’ve been able to show only the columns of marchers entering Red Square. People’s faces would be flowing past, but the viewers would’ve never had the true impression of what was happening. The number of people on the screen would’ve remained the same. The helicopter camera presented the real scale. I cannot recall another event that would gather as many people on the streets of Moscow at any one time. It was like a river – as mighty as The Volga.
At a certain point I had to step out of the broadcasting van to help one of our cameramen, and I was really enchanted by what I saw. Then I started moving upstream to take a closer look at the people. Just as many other dwellers of a vast megapolis I don’t like crowds and usually try to keep away from large gatherings. This time I wished to be together with everybody else. In fact, that was not exactly what one might call a crowd. Crowds are faceless. That one was different. Each marcher was a unique personality.
─ Didn’t you feel disappointed you hadn’t taken photos of your own grand-dads with you?
─ On the morning of May 9 I was going to work. Who could’ve thought the events would turn that way?
My granddads both were World War II veterans. Both returned home safely, both were colonels… But that’s a different story.
─ Do you have a plausible explanation why so many people showed up?
─ First. The subconscious feeling of a foreign threat to the country was invisibly present there. I am certain this back thought was on many people’s minds, although most of the marchers did not say that aloud. We have the Great Victory, we have the historical memory and we shall never agree to succumb to any alien force. Our people possess one very unique quality: we may be at odds with each other and try to settle scores in dozens of ways, but we unite in an instant the moment we feel outside pressure.
Second. I know many people who hadn’t had the slightest intention of joining the march. But as soon as they saw the first live pictures on TV, they hurried to take photos of their ancestors who had fought in that war out of the family albums and go to the center of Moscow. It was a very sincere, spontaneous impulse. The purity of emotion was amazing. Not a single political slogan, no party flags…
─ It is to be hoped it stays this way. Without anyone trying to jump on the bandwagon and steering the grass-roots initiative in the desired direction.
─ I do hope nobody will try to ruin the people’s spontaneous feeling of unity. Any pre-organized campaign, even a very good one, instantly loses much of its original energy. Possibly, it was a kind of reward for us for our efforts exerted over the past quarter of a century, over some most dramatic, hungry years, to try to show something special on May 9 so as to keep the timeline uninterrupted. For our children the war is long-gone history. They know about it first and foremost from works of art, and I believe it was very far-sighted and patriotic of our television to keep narrating the events of those days again and again. The people that has forgotten the last-fought war is on the threshold of another one. Our sense and memory of that last war are still very acute and deep, although most of us were born when it had been long over.
─ For how long was the Immortal Regiment report expected to stay on air live?
─ Fifty minutes.
─ And in reality it lasted for…
─ More than four hours. We ditched the original schedule. We even went on air earlier than planned – as soon as we saw the crowd flooding Tverskaya Street. Those were the very same people who the next morning would probably be elbowing each other and quarreling a bit during the rush-hour stampede. But as soon as there emerged a reasonable occasion for feeling pride, they rose above themselves. They started radiating a very different energy. One could easily sense that.
─ Did you share the signal with your colleagues?
─ Sure, we did. Any broadcaster was welcome to telecast the parade for free, provided the requests had been filed on time, and the requests were many – from Russian channels and the BBC to Greek and Bulgarian television. The Immortal Regiment report and the gala show that followed were shared with another nation-wide broadcaster, the VGTRK. Sometimes even a blockbuster with a thrilling plot is unable to keep the viewer seated in front of the TV to the end. On that day all was very different. People were literally riveted to their screens watching other people walk across the square.
─ Do you have any statistics to confirm that?
─ According to the audience measurement service the aggregate share of Immortal Regiment on Channel one and the VGTRK’s Rossiya-1 channel was around 50.
─ On May 9 even Sunday evening’s main weekly 60-minute news roundup at 21:00 opened not with the news of the Red Square parade, but with the Immortal Regiment report. And the tonality was different. Let us put it this way – it was not Ukrainian.
─ Our anchor, Irada Zeinalova, told the story of her granddad, an ethnic Azerbaijani, who was rescued by his brother-soldier, an ethnic Georgian. Irada has a Georgian patronymic. Her Azerbaijani father was given a Georgian name – Avtandil - in honor of his lifesaver. The story moved some to tears. That’s when one realizes ‘Fatherland’ and ‘father’ are not just cognate words.
─ But in that very same Immortal Regiment report a woman recalled her grandfather, who, when the war had been already over, was killed by nationalist followers of Stepan Bandera in Western Ukraine.
─ But it did happen. The woman told a real history of her family. We had not distributed any leaflets with pre-written texts. We had not told anyone: ‘Twenty steps away from here you will be approached by our correspondent who will turn the mike to you.’ The people were looking for our reporters in the crowd on their own and came up to share reminiscences. Some were very good story-tellers, and others, not. But that’s what we call ‘human touch.’
─ How many hours did you spend in Red Square on May 9?
─ I was there at 08:00 and left for home when it was close to midnight. I stepped out of the broadcasting van and felt I must take a seat on the steps for a while. I was literally out on my feet.
─ The holidays are over. Back to our weekday chores.
Born November 8, 1959 in Luhansk, Ukraine. In 1982, Andrei Vandenko graduated from the Kiev National University of Taras Shevchenko specializing in journalism. Since 1989, he lives and works in Moscow. Vandenko has more than 20 years of experience in the interview genre. He was published in the major part of top Russian media outlets and is a winner of professional awards.