Especially for Kommersant, the heads of the main TV channels sum up the results of the TV season

Entertainment and trash became the dominant genres of the 2006/2007 season. Channel One has surpassed everyone not only in the number of premiere shows, but also in the high quality of their performance. TNT managed to find new formats and niches of “live” television for its target audience. “Russia” managed to retain its regular viewers with a minimum of premieres, reruns and showing standard prime-time series. Last season, the NTV channel plunged even deeper into trash, scandals and crime, demonstrating very high dynamics of viewer interest.

The television audience has shown great interest in the highly spiritual film “The Island” by Pavel Lungin on the Rossiya channel, but this does not prevent it, judging by the ratings, from actively absorbing with the same attention NTV programs about mutilated adults, crippled children and various human anomalies in prime time . Against such a background, family values in a glamorous shell somehow faded this season, which is perhaps why STS had one of the most unsuccessful television seasons. Political censorship on television is more than firmly established. The only exception remains REN TV with its news “24” and the program “Week”, where you can hear what has not been discussed in the news of federal television channels for a long time.

About how the top officials of the main TV channels saw the 2006/2007 television season, about their own successes and the successes of their colleagues (1), the failures of the season and alarming trends (2), as well as expectations and plans for the future television season (3), Kommersant columnist ARINA Kommersant BORODINA asked the heads of Channel One, Rossiya, NTV, STS, TNT and REN TV to speak out.

Konstantin Ernst, General Director of Channel One

1. We certainly had a very successful season, primarily due to the quantity and quality of new television projects. Such as “Minute of Fame”, “Stars on Ice”, “King of the Ring”, “Two Stars”, “Circus”. We tried to guess the constantly changing preferences and sympathies of our TV viewers, and this season we succeeded more often. I would like to recall the still high-quality film screening, I dare say, the best among all Russian television channels. It was important for us to return and show to the Russians Sergei Bondarchuk’s series “Quiet Don,” which had long been considered irretrievably lost. And the three-year detective story of his return to his homeland is worth a separate TV show. An important work for us is the series “Leningrad”. We made it for a long time, trying to convey the atmosphere of this tragic and heroic time. It seems to me that we were successful in the “Closed Show” project with Alexander Gordon. We have found an adequate form of presenting new Russian films to our audience, the direct screening of which, without an introduction and subsequent discussion, would hardly have found such a large audience. Of course, we had successes in documentary films, and our television promotion team, I hope, regularly delighted our viewers and colleagues. Our bosom competitors , the Rossiya channel, as always, did not let us relax, for which we are certainly grateful to them. I think it was interesting for everyone to see a pure experiment in the form of competition within the same television format. In my opinion, our colleagues coped very successfully with Dancing on Ice. NTV this season actively developed the niche of extreme documentaries. I’m not a judge of my colleagues, but viewers were actively interested in their experiments, which allowed NTV to maintain serious shares, especially on weekends. On STS this season I liked the series “Kadetstvo”: it is positive, well-made and definitely fits the profile of their audience. TNT this season, of course, was one of the most active channels, introducing a large number of television projects, and this is always important. The feeling of a live channel is created, the viewer immediately responds to it. So I congratulate Roman Petrenko on one of his most successful seasons.

2. As for failures, we certainly had them. And it is impossible, broadcasting 24 hours 365 days a year, to have only a successful and high-quality product. If we talk about specifics, then let our friends-competitors and TV critics talk about it better. As for the general trends, then, of course, the genre of domestic series, especially the “long” one, is in crisis. The audience is overfed with the product, merging in its head into a single and inseparable mess. Nowadays, only truly high-quality, precisely dramatized, well-told stories attract attention. The long era of classic Soviet humor has ended. Not only television bosses, but also ordinary television viewers are tired of watching all these national concerts. I think this is definitely a positive development. I hope that after this barrage of post-Soviet vulgarity, smart and subtle humor of a new wave will appear. We look forward to this and will contribute in every possible way. The development of theatrical film exhibition in the country and the active spread of the DVD format undoubtedly influenced the decline in the ratings of premiere and high-budget Western films. A significant part of the audience has already seen these films in theaters or at home, and they are unlikely to want to watch it again along with advertising. So the American majors will have problems with the ever-increasing cost of their product. It already exceeds a reasonable ratio: the ratio of cost to rating.

3. Of course, in the next TV season interest in socio-political programs and talk shows will return; this always happens before and during elections. And in general, the new season portends powerful competition and, as a consequence, new television achievements and discoveries. No one is safe from defeat either, which makes this fight dramatic and high-energy, which is what always attracts a large audience. And I hope we will be able to surprise our viewers and competitors.

Anton Zlatopolsky, general director of the Rossiya TV channel

1. We are completely satisfied with the results of this television season. The most important television formats for us were the projects “Dancing on Ice” and “Dancing with the Stars”. Last season we became pioneers in this genre, and for us to continue this theme was extremely important. For us, this is the case when we are proud that our fellow competitors were not able to catch up with the performance of our ice dances. Despite the length of their show, they are already on air “solo”, without dividing the audience.

Of the “reputation” series, the most important for us was the series “Lenin’s Testament”. We were well aware that this project was quite complex for a wide mass audience. But the results we received made us very happy. The TV viewing figures for "Lenin's Testament" across the country were even slightly higher than the average share of the channel, which once again confirms that the audience of our channel is different and it requires not only entertainment, but also work of the soul and heart.

Separately, I would like to mention our film “The Island” by Pavel Lungin, which premiered on the Rossiya TV channel. With the help of television, we were able to give this film the importance it received in society. It was the television ratings, not the box office receipts, that showed what a huge audience we were able to attract to this topic. And if we talk about the purpose of television, we believe that “The Island” showed it as clearly as possible. We are very pleased that we have launched a television movie, which we are shooting specifically for television. And although it is low-budget compared to films, in the vast majority of cases these domestic films beat foreign blockbusters in ratings.

About the successes of colleagues: the number of premieres on Channel One was more than worthy. Not all of them were successful, but the fact that our colleagues demonstrated such creative activity certainly cannot be ignored. The result of Vladimir Kulistikov's three-year work was a significant increase in NTV's ratings. It is also important to note that this channel began to work in a clearly defined niche and genre. I can’t help but mention STS: despite the fact that my colleagues had both successes and failures during the television season, the market indicators of the shares indicate a stable level not only of the STS channel, but also of their entire holding company. I can’t ignore the works of Roman Petrenko, who demonstrates absolutely market positioning and a stable growth in the share of TNT.

2. I am not ready to discuss the failures of my colleagues; I will only talk about my own. The main failure is the insufficient number of television program premieres. We will try to take this into account in the new season. In general, we are pleased with the quality of the “TV soap” lines, but the return on them is not what we expected. Another problematic point for the channel is the lack of programming slack on Saturday (where we sometimes give way) due to the two-hour regional overlap, which only VGTRK has. As a result, our national audience tunes into the channel's air on Saturdays only at 18:00, and it is already extremely difficult to start accelerating and competing at this time.

3. Next season is an election year. And for us, as a state channel, this is very serious not only due to the general politicization that occurs in any society on the eve of such election campaigns, but also in accordance with the current legislation, which requires us to devote a large amount of airtime to political advertising and debates. This will radically change the broadcasting of our channel during the corresponding period. Another serious factor for us is the launch of a children’s channel, which is being carried out by VGTRK as part of the next season. This will significantly affect the network of the Rossiya TV channel. In addition, I believe that next year the situation associated with the change of ownership of a number of serious television assets will clearly become apparent. As a result of these transactions, new players have emerged, and, as a result, we can expect a variety of surprises here: the emergence of new TV channels and the repositioning of old ones.

Vladimir Kulistikov, General Director of NTV

1. I won’t talk about our successes, let others talk about them. We are happy for our colleagues.

Fireworks show on Channel One: “Stars on Ice”, “Minute of Glory”, “King of the Ring”. A bright, nostalgic feeling - real, merciless life somewhere far away. It’s like you’re flying away to a country that hasn’t existed for a long time, and probably never existed.

Vesti-24 is the dream come true of all Russian information specialists. Many wanted to do it, but didn’t believe enough. Dobrodeev believed and found means, ideas, people. Thus, we raised our news broadcasting to a global level worthy of membership in the G8.

2. Vladimir Solovyov and I still fail to captivate leading politicians with the idea of the need for debates and discussions face to face in direct fights or at least “for three”. Its not our fault. We have an excellent presenter who has created excellent formats. But big politics is secluded in the quiet of offices, done on computers, and perhaps even on the computers themselves. Bright shows with bright characters are becoming rarer and rarer. And they look like hello from a bygone era.

3. Our main task in the new season is to withstand the onslaught of clone programs, which will appear in increasing numbers on competing channels, copying our best programs - “Program 'Maximum'”, “Frank Confession”, etc. I would like to warn the imitators : While you are repeating the backside of NTV, our creative is looking forward and moving forward. We will stun you! Try to catch up with us.

Alexander Rodnyansky, General Director of STS

1. There are not too many positive events this TV season. These, undoubtedly, include the very high standard of quality declared by the entertainment programs made on Channel One. These are “Stars on Ice”, “Minute of Glory” and “King of the Ring”. This also includes “Dancing on Ice” on “Russia”. But on Channel One, the shows were more complexly staged, high-tech, and with their diversity they impressed both the audience and the professional community, setting the bar for the entire market. Entertainment is the dominant genre this season. Both “First” and “Russia” had separate successful documentaries.

If we talk about the successes of STS, it is primarily “Kadetstvo”. As you know, STS has long been working in the area of youth-family and at the same time respectable television. As a matter of principle, we don’t go into trash. Although with such, if you like, trashization of the airwaves or the obvious exploitation of radical or previously peripheral zones of human interest in a system that assumes the family nature of television viewing, it becomes much harder to work. And in this sense, the success of Kadetstvo is especially dear to us. “Kadetstvo” has become a brand and can continue to develop, which has always been important to us. The second successful project is more of an image-reputation project, made in the very important space of live improvisational humor for us - “Thank God, you came!” These two projects are undeniable successes for the channel. Also this TV season, we have completed a very important project for me, which I have long wanted to do - the daily popular science TV magazine "Galileo", which is very well watched by our young audience.

2. The obvious problem of this television season is the increasing sameness and similarity of brands among the main participants in television competition. There is less and less variety of genres. Since this is happening against the backdrop of an increasing number of channels, the television audience, naturally, within the framework of an understandable and long-established trend of divergence in tastes and preferences, is growing on niche and small channels. This is her response to the genre similarity and monotony of the menu of the main channels. There is no particular breakthrough in serial genres either. If previously one strong Russian series in prime time was enough to decide the fate of the competition, today the series are very often similar, and this forces some players to move to the border television zones, including trash.

A curious circumstance characterizing the minds of the audience and the peculiarity of competition can be the extraordinary success in the first half of the television season of the re-run of the series “Secrets of the Investigation” on the Rossiya channel. It turned out that especially the older audience often prefers a well-known, favorite product, but not a premiere one. Although until recently such a fact was difficult to imagine. In the second half of the season, the audience from 18 to 45 (which is the majority of STS viewers) decreased by as much as 8%, which is a lot, while those over 45, on the contrary, increased. There were no guaranteed genres this season. The main role in competition is rather played by the quality of the programs made. It is this professional component that often turns out to be decisive today. It is no coincidence that in answer to the first question I noted the extremely high level of quality of the projects announced by Channel One. But even here, “King of the Ring” was good in terms of quality, but he is not a champion of the competition.

We fought for our system of relations with the audience, but we did not always succeed. We really didn’t succeed with the main evening series “Petya the Magnificent,” and we didn’t succeed with the series “Everything Is Mixed Up in the House.” But there is no exact answer to the question of what should be done specifically in the serial genre. On television, as in cinema, quality is everything: three-dimensional characters and full-fledged fascinating stories. To what extent this will be implemented in the next TV season is still unclear.

3. For us in the future television season, there is only one problem - to clearly understand for ourselves what kind of television STS is for its loyal viewers who watched it at different periods of time with interest, curiosity, and attention. To answer the question of how to make people talk about life in those words and terms for a channel that claims to have an optimistic, comfortable and at the same time dynamic and modern outlook on life, which does not want to be only glossy and glamorous. After all, we always won when we were witty, humorous and realistic. In the new season, STS has a huge number of new projects. This is a complete and absolute update. Along with two or three drama series and five or six sitcoms (we will once again try vertical programming), we have several ambitious program shows, three large programs aimed at prime time (for the first time), two aimed at pre-prime, and four, designed for daytime. Among the new sitcoms, there are several original ones. Like “Kadetstvo”, we produced them ourselves, one is called “Daddy’s Daughters” - it is already ready, and we are waiting for the start of the television season. In the new TV season, we will try to radically change STS - from the slogan to the design of the channel, we will try to become fresh.

Roman Petrenko, General Director of TNT

1-2. The last TV season, in my opinion, was not particularly lively. The six largest TV channels remained within their historical values. The trend of market fragmentation has become even more obvious: small channels are moving into narrow niches, while large ones are forced to more strictly define their target audience and program focus. An example of a successful launch is the TV channel “2x2”: a narrow niche, unexpectedly for everyone, brings serious rating dividends to the channel almost from the start.

This year, another global trend has emerged - the concentration of media assets. After a series of acquisitions of "Prof-Media", four major media holding remained in the country: "First", VGTRK, Gazprom-Media and Prof-Media.

If we talk about TNT, then this season we finally completely crystallized our positioning: TNT - a bright, provocative, sharp channel for young people. We continued to follow our strategy "Difficult or die" and, in my opinion, felt for a few very fresh ideas.

The first paranormal show of the country "Battle of psychics" helped solve the problem of the hottest slot - Sunday 20.00. The share of this project is 30% higher than the average channel. A very good result! Psychics work such miracles that even producers of the show refuse to believe.

We continue to develop the main direction for the comedy for TNT: the series "Happy Together" is today the leader in the Genre "Situational Comedy". The comedy project "Our Russia" demonstrates a new level of humor. In my opinion, it is made so smartly that even the unprecedented courage in choosing the degree of frankness in their disclosure is forgiven. The Club Club has become a phenomenon beyond the framework of television, and still holds its high positions. “Laughter without Rules” is a new program in which novice comedians compete, originally conceived to identify fresh talents of the genre, unexpectedly began to give serious ratings.

We are trying to become the leaders of the new humor. Another generation of people requires other comedians and other humor, about "here and now", about recognizable life situations. The almost paradoxical phenomenon "Dom-2" beats all world records for duration and in the fourth year of life collects even a large audience than during his youth.

But the main thing that happened on TNT in this television season is - we demonstrated one of the highest growth rates of the audience in the country and for the first time we earn enough money to realize almost any creative idea and not compromise with a sense of taste and long -term strategy.

If we talk about competitors, it is worth noting NTV, which in terms of growth of the share occupies a leading place. They have almost no failures in the season, but a large number of serial successes, in particular, “damned paradise”, new seasons of “Streets of Broken Lights”, “Blind-2”. Wasteringly made TV-Tabolings: "Program 'Maximum'" Russian Sensations ".

The Channel One, despite the increased number of channels that are ready to profit from an extensive audience, stably holds its title. They were a successful in scale projects with stars: "Stars on the ice" and "Circus with stars", as well as "Minute of Glory". From the series, it is worth noting the "Last Armorman", "Quiet Don", "Leningrad". The documentary movie of the late Prime is brilliant. For the first time in many years, the Foreign series “survived” at the “first” manage to make a national hit on a national hit. Moreover, in other countries of the CIS, in which it is usually what has become a hit in Russia is even better, the "lost" has not become a hit.

Star programs are powerfully made on the channel "Russia" : "Dancing on the ice" and "Dancing with the stars." The channel is still successful in the series: the " Secrets of the investigation", "Ticket in the harem", "Sonya Golden Hand", "Katerina" are remarkably made.

STS after the triumphal last season, which was based on Megahit "not be born beautiful", is less lucky this season. The series "Cadet" is the main success of the STS. Not right away, but spun the seat "who is the master in the house."

Alexander Ordzhonikidze, CEO of REN TV

1. The most successful REN TV project is the series "Soldiers". Three years is on the air, and this year, compared to last season, the dynamics of ratings are still high. For three hundred episodes, we manage to keep the audience chained to this series, and interest is only growing. The branch of the series "Soldiers" - an independent series "Warrant Officer" was also successful. For six months, we showed it twice, and both times the share was doubled above the average along the channel.

Since January, we have launched a new line of documentary and journalistic of various “stories”: private, fantastic, secret, extraordinary ... although some names of these cycles could seem criminal yellow, but in terms of content we avoided such an effect. If they were such, then, probably, the numbers would be higher, but we deliberately did not want to slide into such a niche.

The program “Week with Marianna Maksimov” deserves all sorts of praise: her ratings went up this season again, which primarily testifies to the professionalism of Marianne herself and the collective that works with her. The serious interest of society in such programs is also important, and if it is not at the peak, as it was in the 90s, but still exists. Yes, and the news "24" this season also has a positive dynamics.

In March, we launched a current show "Evening with Tigran Keosayan." We believe that on television, and on our channel in particular, such programs must exist. Let them not be super-rating, although there is positive dynamics here, but for society you need a daily current show. We try to be relevant, discuss issues that today concern many, for example, from the "marsh of disagreements" to the heat in Moscow. Successfully , "the hour of the court with Pavel Astakhov" is still going on. With high ratings, Mikhail Zadornov’s concerts go on the channel, we also hope for further cooperation. The culinary "Series" "Pozda dinner" in the pre -name has very high numbers, significantly exceeding the average fraction of the channel.

In general, we managed to tighten the ratings on weekends, especially on Sunday. This is largely due to the fact that men aged 25-54 years, and this is now our target audience, of course, have a great opportunity to watch TV on the weekend. In general, in our audience, from 6 to 54 years old, compared with the past television season, there is a small, but positive dynamics.

Speaking about colleagues, I note the professionalism of the Channel One and Russia, which work quite confidently with their target audience. As for NTV, there are amazing dynamics, high ratings. Due to what?! You yourself see on the air yourself. Many say that STS had a failure season. I do not think so. Yes, last year they had a peak, but this could not continue constantly, and a decrease in a share is quite a natural thing. But the STS has a lot of high -quality series and programs. And, of course, TNT progress is very impressive. And just in one of the most difficult television genres, humor, they do everything successfully. After the super -Russian Comedy Club, an even more successful “Our Russia” appeared - made great, the numbers are amazing. The success of the sitcom "Happy Together". The TNT channel is changing in a positive direction, and now TNT, along with the STS, have entered into direct competition. If earlier they were different, now their audiences converge.

2. Discussing the failures of colleagues, it seems to me, is not entirely correct, so I will say about my own. Unfortunately, after leaving Formula 1, Schumacher, the interest of viewers in these competitions decreases. Compared to last year, ratings decreased by about 30%. Strong failure is our humorous programs, and we will work to ensure that we have popular, but less vulgar projects. The line of the sitcoms did not go on the channel, in Prime there are no more.

3. In September, we will have premieres, in particular, in Prime Time there will be new Russian series. We will develop existing projects. We still count on the same audience that is watching Ren TV.

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 109 dated 06.26.2007, p. 6

Authors:

Arina Borodina

"Try to catch up with us"