News is beginning to surface of the mysterious cancellation of a scheduled tv show about Roman Abramovich.
Kommersant reports that, after running the first part of a series of programmes about Roman Abramovich, the NTV Director General suddenly decided to pull the second episode from the Sunday evening schedule without any notice.
NTV Director General Vladimir Kulistikov offered the following explanation which - frankly - baffles me:
“It was absolutely my decision. Announcements often run ahead of the director general’s thought, and then I suddenly make different decisions. It is common practice in our work: we let something into broadcasting, and we take something out,” he said. Kulistikov was surprised to hear speculations that it was Abramovich who asked not to let out the story: “First story was all right, there was nothing bad in it! Unfortunately, I’m not personally acquainted with Roman Arkadievich. We showed reports about him many times, and never got any objections from the governor”.
No word yet from the Abramovich camp, but the Kremlin have been quick to deny any involvement:
“We absolutely deny the very thought about possible interference into NTV’s editorial policy and specifically into Anton Khrekov’s program.”
Who knows - perhaps NTV had advance word that Abramovich was no longer Russia’s richest man, and decided that no-one would ever want to watch a tv show about a has been Chelsea boss….
{ 1 comment }
La Russophobe 02.14.07 at 10:00 pm
“It is common practice in our work.”
Quite correct. Incompetence, duplicity and censorship are common practice in Russian journalism these days, especially the kind practiced in outfits controlled by the Kremlin.
Comments on this entry are closed.