Translated material
New Show Sobchak: "House-2018"
What brought the TV presenter to the presidential campaign, and whether it is useful to the Kremlin
Photo: ntv.ru
The former governor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak in August 2017 would have turned 80 years old. The legendary St. Petersburg mayor went down in history as the first chosen mayor of Leningrad, who returned his original name to the city, as well as as a person, thanks to whom Russian President Vladimir Putin began a political career. Now, a chance to become famous in big politics appeared with the daughter of Sobchak, who in childhood played catching up with Putin's daughters - and now he is going to compete with the elections in 2018.
From Putin to Bolotnaya and back
The fact that the Kremlin is looking for a woman and is looking at Sobchak, in early September, the newspaper Vedomosti wrote with reference to sources in the presidential administration. The TV presenter in her blog on the website of the Echo of Moscow radio station was indignant: “This is a lie. I did not have and could not have either direct or indirect contacts with the presidential administration on this subject. I do not need their blessing. I will solve it myself: how and what to do. "
But, on the other hand, she recalled that she began to engage in politics and social activities 6 years ago, during rallies on Bolotnaya Square. “I can do more than I have been doing all these years. And recently, when the dad was celebrated for 80 years, I realized that I couldn’t just, but that I should do something, ”she concluded. “It is these elections of 2018 that would be the right challenge to a person who wants to return a policy to the country.”
Photo: 24smi.org
Last Saturday ( October 14. - NT), the BBC reported that Sobchak, along with the producer Vera Krichevskaya, was shooting a film about the life and career of his father - and on this occasion she interviewed Putin, and then talked in private with him.
Last week, a new issue of the Glamor magazine with a portrait of Sobchak on the cover and an interview, in which the editor -in -chief of L'Officiel, also did not deny that she would be advanced to the presidency was also released. “It's just that I am just such a person - as a“ anthill ”cake. There are many different layers, but in the end I am one cake. I communicate with different people, I am interested in everything, I want to know everything, to participate in everything, to study every second - my life consists of this, ”said the TV star.
Putin previously commented on the news about the plans of the 36-year-old presenter to advance to the presidency of the presidency-he said “for God's sake” and added that he treated her father with great respect.
There is a rare case of complete harmony in politics, if not, symphony. With friends of Ksenia-entrepreneur Umar Dzhabrailov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who previously also ran for presidents at the same time as Putin-everything was more businesslike.
Starting capital
In 2001, Sobchak, which was then 20, was transferred from the faculty of international relations of St. Petersburg State University to MGIMO. At first, she helped her Ballerina Anastasia Volochkova and Chechen businessman Umar Dzhabrailov, in whose company she often appeared in a secular chronicle helped her. A lot of noise in the press made a robbery of the girl’s apartment in March 2002: thieves carried out all the jewelry, including two necklace necklaces, Chopard watches - only $ 600 thousand, according to Ksenia.
Photo: Woman.ru
Six months later, Ksenia’s mother, Lyudmila Narusova, also moved to Moscow as a senator from the Republic of Tuva. Sometimes she, along with a modestly smiling daughter, could meet the center of strategic developments, then in Curules at a New Year's party. But in show business, Ksenia in those years preferred to move without links to her parents.
Still being in the status of the "student", she led secular ceremonies and tried on television. In an interview with Forbes, Sobchak said that she did not go through the first casting for the role of the host of the Afisha program of the RTR channel.
But in 2004, the producers of TNT chose yesterday's student without experience on TV for the role of one of the leading reality shows "Dom-2".
Glamour photo: Glamor.ru
The show, in which young men and girls turned novels during the construction of the house, became very popular - his rating on TNT reached 28% of the audience. The deputies of the Moscow City Duma even demanded to conduct a prosecutor’s check of the television program, and Ksenia Sobchak be brought to criminal liability “for pacification and pimination”.
But TNT did not react to these stupid things: in 2005, Sony Pictures bought the right to the format - the first case of this kind in the history of Russian TV. In 2012, when Sobchak left TNT, Dom-2 fell into the Guinness Book of Records as the longest reality show in world history-and continues to this day.
Gonorar Sobchak in “House-2” during this time grew from $ 10 thousand to $ 50 thousand per month.
Monetization "Xenophobia"
In 2007, Russian Forbes first included it in the rating of celebrities, estimating the annual income of the host of $ 1 million. By 2017, it, according to the magazine, reached $ 2.1 million.
Where does the money come from? Sobchak tours in Russia with master classes “Theory of Success”, receives fees for advertising contracts with TsUM, JPoint jewelry brand, Terekhov’s fashion house, a tool for increasing Prelox and Dior Makeup potency.
Most of the advertising revenues fall on the Internet: one advertising post of TV stamps in social networks costs approximately € 7-8 thousand for goods from the luxury segment and from € 10 thousand for mass demand.
Master class of Ksenia Sobchak in St. Petersburg, February 13, 2014 Photo: Geometria.by
And all this is an example of successful monetization of mass hostility and envious interest. This phenomenon even fell into modern literature: in the wake of the growth of the popularity of “House-2”, Viktor Pelevin in his 2006 novel “Empire V” called “Xenophobes” by Ksenia Sobchak hateers.
The director of the “Center for St. Petersburg Policy” Mikhail Vinogradov does not exclude that the Sobchak anti-rating accumulated during her work in show business can be used at the finish of the 2018 campaign-“to show that the enemies are not defeated and trying to raise their heads.”
Political capital
Although the TV presenter dates the beginning of her political activity in December 2011, she tried to play in this field before. In May 2006, she announced the creation of the youth movement "Everyone is free!" (The symbol of the organization was an image of the rear pocket of jeans with such a stamp). Sobchak emphasized then that the organization was created on its own money and does not set itself political goals-just “tens of thousands of letters” that she receives from the viewers of “House-2”, “They made me think that I can do something good.” “This is too risky. She can also help and discredit power, ”the leader of the Prochrevsky youth movement“ Our ”Vasily Yakemenko, the leader of the TV star, commented then to Kommersant. And he added that Sobchak is “the girl is energetic and will succeed if she has enough money, energy and knowledge.”
Obviously, all this was properly accumulated by December 2011, when the star of “House-2” shouted to the microphone from the stage of the rally on Sakharov Avenue: “I am Ksenia Sobchak, and I have something to lose!” The protesters whistled in response and shouted "Professor!" And other offensive words.
This was followed by the removal of Sobchak from contracts with federal television channels. And in March, they came to the TV presenter home with a search on suspicion of financing riots in Bolotnaya. Investigators seized € 1.5 million from the TV presenter in cash. The case did not come to the court, but after a few months the money was returned to her to a penny: they say, by personal order of Putin, to whom the mother of Ksenia turned to, Senator Narusova.
But by the summer of 2012, according to the FOM survey, Sobchak became the most recognizable “opposition leader” - almost all respondents knew it. As before in a media career, only a fifth of the respondents belonged well to it, and half the bad.
She immediately defeated the situation with the search, starring in the commercial of Tinkoff bank calling to store money on the card (and earned 2 million rubles on it).
Political capital over the past since then was supported by the rain for five years, where the Dom-2 star has been conducting a talk show with famous politicians and businessmen Sobchak Live, and also asks President Putin to the annual press conference. Now, perhaps, she has to do the same during the pre -election debate - if the president, as usual, will not refuse them.
Fragment of the current show “Sobchak alive” with Viktor Baturin on the Rain TV channel,
June 21, 2017 Photo: Screenshot from the Rain TV channel
Investment prospects
Will Sobchak help in the presidential election to bring a personal brand to a qualitatively new level? After all, her once influential friends, Dzhabrailov and Prokhorov, a political career after similar shows did not just set up - came to naught. “The dual situation,” says Vinogradov from the Center for St. Petersburg Policy. - Of course, participation in the presidential election works for fame and media. Although the experience of participating in the 1990s was more effective if you look at the (State Duma deputy) Martin Shakkum, (entrepreneur) Vladimir Bryntsalov, (Governor of the Kemerovo region) Aman Tuleyev. The experience of the zero is not so unequivocal, and the last experience of Vyacheslav Maltsev in the elections to the State Duma ( a criminal case has been brought against the politician, and now he is hiding in France. - NT) is potentially extremely disturbing for the future candidate. ”
According to the political scientist, the participation of Sobchak slightly reduces the heavyweight of the 2018 election, creates additional air and allows you to evaluate the scale of the protest potential. But at the same time, it definitely creates risks for the result of voting for a candidate of power in the event of a any effective TV-star campaign.
Photo: 24smi.org
In the meantime, the conversations about the nomination of Sobchak were noticeably worried about Alexei Navalny, who leads his own election campaign, although by law it cannot be elected because of the criminal record in the case of Kirovles. After the first publication on this subject, on Vedomosti, the politician on the air of his YouTube channel “Navalny Live” called on the journalist not to participate in the “rather disgusting Kremlin game, entitled“ Liberal Liberth, to divert attention to the elections ”. “To push off your own allies, as soon as the prospect of political competition loomed somewhere, is wrong, and this is leader,” Sobchak retorted in her blog on Echo of Moscow.
“From the point of view of election, this may be useful - in case of its nomination, the election would be old, and interest in them may be higher,” says a former senior employee of the presidential administration. - It is completely safe for the Kremlin - there is an electoral ceiling of 5-6%, above which she cannot jump. In addition, she will still be in a certain framework of decency. For Ksenia herself, this is an obvious fan. ”
In addition, after the elections or even before their completion, it can be said that she is a constructive opposition, that she has a lot of useful ideas that will necessarily be realized, the interlocutor NT notes, and even invite her to power to some position ...
First published on the website NT on October 15, 2017