Poor imitations

This year was the tenth anniversary of the award ceremony of the National Television Prize Teletriumph. Once again producers of Ukrainian television received symbolic statuettes. However, when compared with 2001 (the year when National Council for Television and Radio together with Industrial Television Committee founded the prize), the only “improvement” was in the number of nominations (there were 45 of them this time), not in the quality of the TV production itself.

This year TV channels and production companies submitted 300 applications for the television prize, 43 of which were from regional companies. The works that took part in competition were evaluated by 40 experts. The greatest number of prizes at this year’s ceremony — 14, were awarded to the TV channel Inter. It was in a way a revenge for last year’s scandal. However, “the country’s first button” made up for the loss not with high-quality social and political or documentary programs, but with TV series. Inter received two awards for the TV series Nebo v Vogni (Sky on Fire), and six for the TV series Svaty (In-Laws). Modern Ukrainian television hasn’t come up with anything better than “kind folk movies.” However, such a number of awards for one project given the present reality of Ukrainian television proves not its high level of production but the fact that there were not that many projects worth awarding. During the whole award ceremony the same people were coming up to the stage to receive the awards. The New Channel, STB, and ICTV, which are considered to be part of Viktor Pinchuk’s informal holding, received 20 statuettes, and 1+1 together with CITI, that form the group of 1+1, received eight awards. This year, just like last year, the show Ukraine’s Got Talent was very popular, and won four awards. The new project Country’s Pride is worth attention, and was chosen as the best social and political show. However, last year’s trends held strong: more and more entertainment and less of anything that would be in fact Ukrainian, honest, or deep. In this situation the words of the ceremony host Oleksandr Pedan seem to be very appropriate. Announcing the winner in the nomination “Historical Program” he said: “When life ushers in old age it is the time for historical programs.” This is the principle that is used by the New Channel, where Pedan works as a host, as well as by the rest of Ukrainian TV channels. They even managed to sensationalize so-called documentary projects, and create a national television which is an imitation of national television.

The special award of the Teletriumph-2010 Prize was presented to the head of the board of directors of the closed joint stock company MMTs STB Volodymyr Borodiansky. The award in the nomination “For Special Contribution to the Development of Ukrainian Television” went to Mykola Slobodian, member of National Council for Television and Radio in 1994 through 1999, director of the Institute of Screen Art at Kyiv National Karpenko-Kary Theater, Cinema and Television University.

Out of the 45 nominations this year three were reserved for purely regional TV channels. The fact that regional television broadcasting companies are capable of producing interesting content is proved, among other things, by the Open Ukraine annual festival organized as part of the International Television Fair. However, the National Television Award usually ignores regional TV companies as if to convey the idea that there are enough of Kyiv-based TV channels worthy of awards.

“The Teletriumph award is fairly subjective. It appears to be a result of certain arrangements, clan sympathies, and groupings,” says Serhii ARKHYPCHUK, director and founder of the TV LAP Media School for Anchorpersons. “There has been a tendency to centralize the award and one gets the impression that this is an inside deal rather than a national award.” Thus, it reduces the significance of Teletriumph, because we can’t say that the best TV programs in such a large country are created only in Kyiv or only on TV channels for large media holdings.

This year all three regional awards went to the Kyiv-based CITI channel, which is part of the 1+1 Group. Even though regional TV companies made as many as 43 submissions to the expert commission, it turned out that there was no one else worthy of the award save for this Kyiv-based broadcaster. On the one hand, some CITI-produced programs indeed stand out against the background of the overall dumbing down of television. It is also clear that the financing this channel gets in Kyiv, and all the more so from the 1+1 holding, is far better than that in the regions, but this is no grounds to turn Teletriumph into an inside award.

Proof of the award’s gradual degradation was found in the half-empty hall of the Zhovtnevy Palace, the permanent mistakes made by the hosts, and the semi-comic atmosphere of the awarding procedure itself. It is becoming increasingly clear that an inside award is not interesting to anyone outside, hence the lack of attention. Meanwhile, the behavior of the hosts who took the liberty of telling dubious jokes forces the viewers to forget about the word “national” in the name of the award. Perhaps, the thing is that priorities should have been set differently a long time ago, and the focus should have been on quality rather than pompous ceremonies. Liudmyla Dobrovolska justly remarked, after winning in the Anchorperson in a Program of Any Format or Region nomination: “We take the test of professionalism not once a year before the expert jury of Teletriumph, but everyday on air before our viewers, so it would be great if each of us took more pleasure in proper work rather than ceremonies.” True, when the Teletriumph award will go not only to the TV channels owned by well-known media moguls, when projects made by the Culture channel are finally “noticed,” when scattered but worthy projects receive adequate support, and television will find room for the multifaceted country, this TV award will become truly national and there will be no need for pomp to conceal provincial farce.