Soviet TV Is Good--and Bad

Lots of propaganda, but a window on the world

Soviet TV is the government's loudspeaker to the people. "Television serves and will serve as a mighty weapon of the propaganda of the beautiful," says the party journal, Kommunist. Americans will not be surprised to learn that the propaganda programs are relentlessly boring. They may be somewhat startled, however, to discover that many of the others are astonishingly good.

In the twelve hours or so in which programs are being beamed, there are good programs for children, concerts almost every night, operas and opulent ballets. In addition to the culture, there is one regularly scheduled quiz show, and, as they do everywhere else, sports receive saturation coverage. There are also more news shows and propaganda, of course--lots of propaganda.

Much of the propaganda is slipped in with the news, documentaries and interview programs, which take up a third of TV's time. Vremya (time), the equivalent of the evening news in the U.S., comes on at 9 p.m. and lasts 35 minutes, with a man and a woman, both about 40, alternately reading the day's events. Stories dealing with the West, particularly the U.S., tend to be heavily disapproving. Viewers learn that President Carter has turned on to "the path of a new cold war and arms race" and that the American people oppose Washington's boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

Between the culture and the propaganda, there is little room for fun, and many Soviet viewers seem to long for more diverting fare. That is one reason why the Soviets seem less addicted than Americans to the black box. There are no figures of comparison for adults, but Soviet children watch TV an average of only 21 hours a week, compared with some 30 hours for youngsters in the U.S. Another reason is more practical: some 80% of Soviet households own TV sets, compared with a saturation 98% in the U.S.

One of the few programs that are both fun and uplifting is a 60-minute weekly show called Film Travel Club, which is a window on the world for travel-restricted Soviets. Surveys indicate that 150 million people watch Film Travel Club and its backpacker host, Yuri Senkevich, 43, every Sunday night.

Film Travel Club usually leaves the beautiful propaganda to others and concentrates on natural wonders, like the Grand Canyon, or exotic people in remote, politically inoffensive settings. "We'll show anything that holds people's interest," says Senkevich, whose TV style can best be described as low-key. "What interests them most of all is mysterious tribes, like the Australian aborigines or peoples that live along the Amazon."

Since the show runs every week, Senkevich and his crew must search the world for new places and faces. The viewers themselves help; the show gets some 2,000 letters a month, most of them suggesting stories. Film Travel Club has only a small staff at the central television studios at Ostankino, in northern Moscow. Most of the reports on Soviet sights are received from Gosteleradio, the official agency handling TV production; stories from abroad are reported by regular Soviet correspondents or are purchased from foreign networks. Occasionally, Senkevich himself travels to spots around the world.

When Soviet skiers completed a 78-day, 1,056-mile trek to the North Pole, for example, he was flown there to interview them.

Senkevich is a doctor who specializes in the effects of extreme conditions upon mind and body, and he spent a year in Antarctica researching his doctoral dissertation. That arduous experience brought him some renown, because his name was first on the list when Norwegian Explorer Thor Heyerdahl asked Moscow science authorities in 1969 to suggest a Soviet doctor to accompany him and four others on a papyrus-reed boat across the Atlantic. That Ra expedition, in turn, brought him to the attention of the producers of Film Travel Club, who hired him as host in 1973. The next time he set sail with Heyerdahl, on a trip down the Tigris River to the entrance to the Red Sea, Senkevich took his camera with him. Millions of fans waited for his reports, and the Soviets, he notes with pride, know more about the expedition than do Heyerdahl's own countrymen.

Still, Soviet viewers miss, quite literally, most of the color in Film Travel Club. Though Soviet TV sets, unlike most other consumer goods, are of excellent quality, only about 7% are equipped to receive color. Since a 23-in. color set costs $980, or the equivalent of four months' salary for the ordinary worker, most armchair travelers will continue to see the world in black and white for a long time to come.

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