Snoddy: Spare a moment to think on TV in Ukraine and Russia

Opinion

While the UK TV ad industry celebrates record adspend in 2021, the reality for media organisations in Ukraine and Russia could not be more different.

Before we can celebrate evidence of a remarkable renaissance of television advertising in the UK, we must first pause and mark the reality of television in other places – Ukraine and Russia.

The television tower near the Ukraine capital Kyiv was shelled (pictured- main image), almost certainly deliberately by the Russian invaders. Five people died in the tower and a number of channels were taken off air.

In Russia itself that last sentence could earn its author up to 15 years in prison because you are not allowed to mention an invasion or war, merely that there is a special military operation under way to free the Ukrainian people who are being held hostage by Neo-Nazi despots.

Russian media cannot describe the conflict in Ukraine as an “ assault, invasion, or declaration of war”.

It was the new Russian law imposing penalties of 15 years for telling the truth that persuaded the staff of Russia’s last independent television station, TV Rain, to stage a mass walkout live on air.

They then played the station out with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, a ballet that has historically symbolised political trouble in Moscow.

The staff of Rain probably got their retaliation in first. President Putin and his police would soon have been after them anyway.

The news website Znak shut itself down two hours after the Russian Parliament unanimously passed the new law cracking down on anything the regime deemed “fake” news.

Ekho Moskvy or Echo of Moscow, one of Russia’s last independent radio stations also closed after increasing pressure over its coverage of the invasion.

There have been more than 1,600 editions of Evening Urgant, the late-night comedy and talk show fronted by Ivan Urgant on Russia’s Channel One.

No more. The programme simply disappeared after Urgant posted a “No To War” message on his Instagram account.

Russia’s ‘fake news’ law could be a sign of weakness

This all sounds remarkably gloomy but the opposite may be true. The crackdowns could well be a sign of Putin’s weakness and the fact he may be losing the information war.

In a modern society where almost everyone has a mobile phone it is virtually impossible to prevent the facts from seeping everywhere throughout Russian society, however draconian the laws become.

There will still be those who believe the ludicrous propaganda broadcast on the main state-controlled channels but they will not include the young and that is the direction from which political change could well come if the generals do not move against Putin.

In the West the information war has been won totally. Almost all the media, whatever its political flavour, whether involving old technology or new, have combined to condemn the murderous assault on the civilian population of Ukraine.

The only exceptions lurk in the dark recesses of the internet and, unsurprisingly, can be found among the ranks of those who think that 5G phones cause Covid, or vaccination is a Bill Gates conspiracy to control the world, that see Putin as a persecuted martyr.

When the speed of online combines with the authority of established media a remarkable thing happens, the creation of an overwhelming force for good – the mobilisation of public opinion.

While it cannot stop bombs or bullets, in the short term, it can move people to raise millions for charity and put pressure on mean-spirited politicians to act with greater humanity.

The commercial boycott still holds power

Public opinion also holds in its hands another powerful weapon – the commercial boycott.

Consumer and advertising boycotts aimed at individual outlets of the media opposing their views on a narrow political issue are often petty and counter-productive.

When a war of aggression is launched against the 40 million citizens of a sovereign state and companies insist on putting continuing business and profit in Russia ahead of taking a principled stand, then prepare for a boycott.

McDonald’s and Coca Cola tried to hold out but under pressure from consumers and shareholders it didn’t last long and both companies are halting their Russian operations alongside the likes of Pepsi and Starbucks. The Premier League has now blocked broadcasts of its games in Russia.

It is a small part of a much greater whole – doing everything possible to demonstrate that anything approaching a normal life in Putin’s Russia will only return when the war of aggression ends.

Contrast to reassuring numbers for UK TV adspend

It is only after all of the above that we can settle down to more parochial stuff by welcoming the fact that around £1bn more was spent on TV advertising in 2021 on the previous year.

The numbers are reassuring, and after all it is advertising that pays for a very large slice of original programming, not least the hugely expensive business of covering an international conflict.

Total TV advertising in the UK rose by 24% last year to £5.46 bn, a record year with online advertising up by 42% to £1.12bn.

As many as 1,286 advertisers used TV advertising for the first time – an increase of 50% on pre-pandemic levels.

Happy numbers indeed, even more so because the overall, record was still 11% up on the pre-pandemic performance in 2019.  The previous high of £5.28bn came in 2016.

This will provide a solid base for traditional television to continue to compete with the streaming giants of the US.

Netflix take a bow for pulling its service out of Russia – but where are the others?

Such results will also provide a strong financial base for the launch later this year of ITVX “the UK’s first integrated advertising and subscription funded platform.”

Sounds like ITV has done some serious thinking about what the role of a traditional advertiser-funded, linear broadcaster should be in an increasingly streamed subscription world.

The notion of watching content for free in an advertising-funded tier or having the choice of an ad-free subscription service seems a logical way of dealing with the obvious dilemma.

It would have been nice to have seen the BBC remain a part of the initiative instead of merely receiving a nominal sum for their 10% Britbox UK stake but the contradictions involved were probably too great.

Meanwhile it will be a bit unfortunate if the record TV advertising take and the launch of ITVX were undermined by the economic war against Putin but just occasionally some things really are more important than television.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays.

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