Russia
Moscow’s Mad TV
7 minutes
September 1998
Phone ringing
01.00
Campbell: At 12:57 the message 00.06
comes through. A shoot out in the city
centre.
Police car
A crack response team from Highway 00.11
Patrol heads to the address,
an apartment block in Kutuzovsky
Prospekt. Upstairs they find the body
of an intruder in a bungled burglary.
Highway Patrol records every detail
Of the blood and corpse.
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Campbell to camera at
Crime scene
In Russia violent crime is all 00.28
Super: Pervasive. This is the first call we’ve
Gone out with Highway Patrol
Eric Campbell and in a bizarre coincidence it’s in a building
next door to our office. The second
shoot out in a week. Now while this is
one Russia’s greatest problems, it's
also become one of Russia’s most
popular entertainments.
Crime TV Program
Highway Patrol in not an arm of the 00.52
police, it’s one of Russia’s top ten
television programs. It doesn’t just
follow the police , it shows every
gruesome detail of what they see.
These are just the mild pictures. Some
of it is far too graphic for our program
to screen. But this is prime time, even
dinner time, entertainment. Kids can
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switch on the telly at 5.30 pm to see
real-life corpses, car smashes and mutilations.
Director Director: Maybe our pictures are too 01.23
Revealing or too gory for the foreign
audience but the Russian audience.
Has become accustomed to them.
Editing room
Highway Patrol is part of the stable of 01.31
TV6, one of Russia’s six national
networks. It’s a young industry run
by young people making new rules.
Montage of TV Programs
Ivan Deminov hosts the TV6 music 01.47
program. At 34 he is one of the oldest
people working here, He is also the
station director.
Deminov interview
Deminov: In fact we had to reinvent 2.00
the bicycle because we didn’t have the
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knowledge. Before 1989 I hadn’t ebem
seen a single Western TV show. We
saw movies, but we didn't have any
experience of, for example, producing
a talk show. We didn't know what it was.
That is why we had to invent many
Things, like, we read about talk shows in
some magazines and we imagined what
they looks like.
TV 6 Music program
Campbell: TV 6 has now built up a 02.44
Catalogue of Western style programs,
ranging from serious crime to serious
news to a serious shopping program.
Their production standards rival most
Western television but they have a
distinctly Russian flavour.
Excerpt from Quality
Sign
One of the most popular programs is 03.12
Quality Sign, a pun on the Old Soviet
Quality Sign which usually meant anything but.
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Anyone prepared to join the queue, 03.36
gets a guaranteed minute of fame.
And they can do anything they
want… literally.
Deminov interview
Deminov: We’re trying to catch up on 04.04
something that the western world has
had for decades. Sometimes there
were excesses—sometimes we go for
exaggerated carnival-like programs
but there’s a craving for
entertainment and that’s what TV is.
Eric vo But it’s not just television’s new found 4.31
freedom that makes it daring.
It's also competition.
Programmers know that if they don't
push the boundaries of what’s a acceptable,
someone else will.
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Excerpt from Highway
Patrol
Campbell: Highway Patrol was 04.49
recently challenged by the ultimate in
reality television. ‘Perikhvat’ meaning
‘interception’ didn't just record police
drama, it created it.
Contestants were given a car and a
Camera crew. They then had to outrun
The Highway Patrol in real high speed
chases around Moscow.
If they could evade police for 35
minutes, they won the car. Even more
surprising than the program itself was
the fact that police gave it their full
cooperation.
Police participating in
filming
Camera crews were also able to travel 05.28
in patrol cars. The program soared in
the ratings but after a couple of months
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it was put on hold. By then it
seems senior police had decided there
was a limit to what police should do.
But what about television?
Deminov interview
Deminov: The main thing here is not 05.44
To overdo it not build everything
around evil if you like. We
understand that viewers will probably
want to see an execution, but
television professionals must be
responsible for what they do.
Highway Patrol expert
Campbell: So dead bodies are okay, 06.05
but executions are over the top. It's
not the sort of television that some of
idealists may have hoped for after the
end of communism. But with
programs like Quality Sign it is
democratic.
Vision Audio Timecode
Mikhail with old
Photos of himself
dancing
Mikhail Ilyaev would never have 06.19
Dreamed he could share his private
Passion with the entire Russian nation.
Grab Mikhail
“I am 64 and I want to share an example 06.27
to the others: dancing despite your
age,
you can dance all your life”
Mikhail Dancing
Viewers are no longer being fed what the 06.41
government thought was good for them.
Now they’re getting anything they want.
X
ENDS
Music 07.00
Credits:
RUSSIA
TV POSTCARD
Reporter ERIC CAMPBELL
Camera TONY DE CESARE
Sound VIACHESLAV ZELENIN
Editor TONY DE CESARE