{"id":5538,"date":"2015-10-22T13:38:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T13:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/television-thats-past-its-prime\/"},"modified":"2015-10-22T13:38:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T13:38:24","slug":"television-thats-past-its-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/critique\/2015\/10\/22\/5538\/","title":{"rendered":"Television That\u2019s Past its Prime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cultural coverage is a complicated problem and simultaneously alluring: we\u2019re talking about art and literature, after all. <\/span><\/p>\n

This temptation gives birth to not only TV series, but also entire \u201cspecialized\u201d TV stations. Such an attempt was made in Armenia at the end of the 90s: a channel named Culture was broadcast with the frequency of today\u2019s h2 channel. It lasted 1\u20132 years.   <\/span><\/p>\n

In Armenia today there are two channels that can be considered cultural. <\/span><\/p>\n

One is Shoghakat TV. Programs such as Museums, The Pianist, Known and Unknown Cinema, Loving the Book, World Cultural Treasures, and The Passion of the Classic speak volumes with their cultural message but share airtime with the Gospel of Mark, Teaching the Gospel, the Miracles and Healings of Jesus, With Love From Holy Echmiadzin, Church Life, Stories from the Bible, and other such series. <\/span><\/p>\n

The cultural\/religious TV station is a very difficult case, a separate topic of discussion: if nothing else, among that which it rebels, art also often rejects religion, god, the church, and in turn, has its own notions of permissible cultural content and forms. <\/span><\/p>\n

The other cultural channel is the Russian Kultura. Amidst the flood of soap operas, accidents, crimes, and programs about \u201cstars,\u201d this channel seems like a salvation. Indeed, it often shows excellent arthouse films and educational programs. On air until 2011 was also Viktor Erofeyev\u2019s Apokrif<\/em> (\u201cApocrypha\u201d) program, which asked questions that were extremely relevant to contemporary cultural critique and had guests who were members of the intellectual elite. <\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, however, Kultura became more and more conservative and \u201cjubilous\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following is one week\u2019s list of \u201cjubilee\u201d programs: Extracts: Nahum Korzhavin (for the 90th anniversary); Documentary film: In Search of Lost Time. Boris Zaborov (for the 80th anniversary); <\/span>Life Line: Leonid Desyatnikov<\/span><\/a> <\/span>(for the 60th anniversary)<\/span>; for <\/span>Nikita Mikhalkov\u2019s 70th Birthday<\/span><\/a>: \u201c<\/span>Not a Good Day<\/span><\/a>\u201d; and 100th anniversary of the [Maxim] Gorky Film Studio.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, many from this list are worthy of a separate program, but added to the special anniversary programs are the old films (again, over the course of one week) Sochinenie ko Dnyu Pobedy<\/em> (\u201cComposition for Victory Day\u201d), Moy Mladshiy Brat<\/em> (\u201cMy Younger Brother\u201d), and The Forsythe Saga (1967 TV series<\/a>), as well as \u201cretired\u201d TV hosts Lev Anninsky (81 years old), Yuri Rost (76), Kirill Razlogov (69), and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even the choice for a documentary film about a classical painter was made based on age discrimination: \u201cLucas Cranach the Elder<\/a>\u201d (kidding).<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirill Razlogov taught me contemporary film. I have the deepest respect for his and many from the Kultura channel\u2019s taste, but what the TV station is missing, in general, are young people, the spirit of fostering innovation, which is the driving force of culture and which doesn\u2019t allow it to become a museum artifact \u2014 the discretion of more convenient pensioners. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, there\u2019s the risk that in rejuvenating the channel, it will be penetrated by opportunistic or maniac journalists and public figures who will preach xenophobia and aggression, based on the example of other Russian national channels.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in conclusion, adapting Yeznik of Kolb\u2019s phrase that an idle bee is better than a hardworking wasp, perhaps at this time we should be content with elderly conservatives \u2014 until the cultural channel of our dreams appears on television.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Vahram Martirosyan<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cultural coverage is a complicated problem and simultaneously alluring: we\u2019re talking about art and literature, after all. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critique","author_posts-vahram-martirosyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}