(3 of 3)
Television glasnost has had its glitches. In a country where "anchormen" have had merely to pick up a TASS wire and read it, few were prepared for the challenge of improvising on live television. The View crew, for example, was drafted from the World Service of Radio Moscow, where commentators had more freedom in preparing shows for foreign listeners. Molchanov, who began his career as a print journalist, recalls that "at the beginning, I had to take a gulp and realize that everything was possible when I went on live."
But the new crop of younger TV hosts has proved a quick study in knowing what to say and show, especially at a time when things forbidden one month may be permissible the next. View host Zakharov compares it with being "a sharpshooter. You have to wait until the right moment to hit the target. But you must learn to compromise. That is part of the new tolerance."
Some Soviet television critics take a measured view of the changes. The only truly fresh idea developed at Ostankino headquarters, they contend, has been the "music-information" program, a formula that has been successfully repeated three times in View, Before and After Midnight and 120 Minutes. Critic Lidiya Polskaya of Literaturnaya Gazeta even suggests that the two national channels should compete with each other to spur greater imagination and innovation. "The workings of Central Television are like a closed black box," she argues. "There is no place for such a monopoly during a period of perestroika. The truth is that even after 40 years, Soviet television is still in the cradle."
- Maybe so, but the baby has taken a first giant step. Says Molchanov: "Who would ever have thought three years ago that we would even have live broadcasts where tough and pointed questions could be asked?"