Heroes of RBC

Television for people

The state in Russia does not control the media in any way. These words of Vladimir Putin, who he said in the film of Oliver Stone, could be taken as an epigraph to the story told by journalist Roman Super on RBC. Actually, Oliver Stone himself, if he was not so fascinated by his hero, could easily give more than a dozen examples that refute this optimistic statement of the President of Russia. But he did not do this, believing his word. Yes, and it is embarrassed, indeed, to catch the first person of Russia, to put it mildly, on the inconsistency of his words and the real state of affairs.

The novel Super, by the way, was forced to leave the REN TV channel a few years ago with Marianna Maksimov (their Week program did not fit into his new software policy), at the same time that Stone and Putin communicated in the first channel, presented a film about Arkady Mayofis on the RBC channel - the owner and founder of the largest media holding in Siberia, where he went and where he went and and where he went and and where he went and The legendary Tomsk channel TV2. Why is the legendary? And try to find another such regional channel that for 25 years of existence would win 24 TEFI figurines-at that time this high television award was worthwhile, and the strongest broadcasters of the country were seriously fought for possessing it.

And at 53, Arkady Mayopis had to abandon the profession, previous interests and even the Motherland and begin a new life. In Israel, where, according to the apt expression of Super's novel, Mayofis decided this time to sell not a spectacle, but bread. And what is the kind of this, you ask? He is not the first, he is not the last to go to his historical homeland in search of a better life.

And here is not so. Arkady Mayofis and in Russia for the time being had the same “best life”. Favorite business. Recognition of the audience. Professional success. Commercial success - the cost of its media holding during the heyday reached $ 15 million.

The principle that Majofis laid the basis of the company's company’s activities, sounded too naively and too romantic: “We are doing television for people”. And they did: journalistic investigations, reports that help people live and survive. Interview with interesting audience heroes - Gorbachev, Nemtsov, Khodorkovsky, Solzhenitsyn ... The news was their profession, and Tomsk citizens loved and appreciated their television company, so when the trouble happened, they went to rallies in its defense, despite the severe Siberian frost.

Today, Arkady Mayofis talks about what happened almost calmly. But still perplexed: “From an electoral point of view, we did not represent any interest. But we set a bad example to other colleagues - why can we, but they don’t? ”

At first, a feeder broke - a technical device connecting the transmitter to the antenna. “Wait, we repair,” the public services responsible for the equipment promised. Then the company TV2 received a notification from Roskomnadzor that it would be punished for the suspension of broadcasting (by technical, notice, and reasons independent of it). Then it was time to renew the license for broadcasting, which was usually extended automatically, and then they took it and did not extend.

The small (on the country's scale) independent television company did not like the new governor, and her intercession did not save her intercession.

On January 1, 2015, journalists on their air said goodbye to the beloved city and expensive viewers, and soon Arkady Mayofis left for Israel, where he began to create a new business from scratch, inventing to make edible souvenirs that open up the taste of Israel: the dates of the paste, halva and other sweet “goodies” that no one had done before it. “I cannot do what does not inspire me,” he admits in an interview with Roman Super. - I am aimed at the result. I see the goal. The main thing is that they do not interfere with me. ”

“Heroes of RBC” - this is the name of the cycle of Super Roman’s programs: about those who have made a successful business in Russia and managed to remain a man about those who create what we use every day. But the native country appreciates little people, endlessly placing them with slingshots and obstacles and, as if specifically pushing them beyond its limits.

Yes, and the RBC channel itself, on which the acute -actual programs of Stanislav Kucher, Rodion Chepel, Pavel Selina and Julia Pankratova, that is, is completely uncontrolled by the Kremlin (here you could put the smiley), today is at risk, since its owner Mikhail Prokhorov (also completely voluntarily) was forced to sell the businessman Grigory Berezkin. And the change of owners, as the sad experience of other companies shows, rarely leads to something good.

From the media holding, RBC was already forced to leave a year ago (well, without any reason, except for the publication of Panama offshores) the former team, led by chief editor Elizabeth Ossetian, who left to study in America. And the other day she stated that she remained working at the Berkeley University, where she would be engaged in investigative journalism related to Russia.

In general, the very private statement unexpectedly passionately responded to the Russian 24 channel, which devoted the Ossetian and its choice a five-minute plot, in which the author Ekaterina Efimova and four of some experts unknown to the world were branded “people who were ready to work against their own country”-and even for money, they sleep and see how to more closely inflame and humiliate Russia.

And such a poison and such hatred was saturated with this whole plot that suspicion involuntarily flared up: its creators simply envy their free colleagues, in demand everywhere, wherever they found themselves. And not a word about why Ossetian a year ago was forced to leave a successful and prosperous RBC. Because this does not fit into their concept: only renegades and traitors of the Motherland can flatter in overseas promises and fees. Not like we, patriots. We just, for the wrong way, love the homeland and serve it faith and truth, and she reciprocates us.

And with the media everything is fine with us. Even the president of the other day said this. No control. That is, in general.