World

MTV Is A Tough Sell In Russia

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 6, 1998 / 5:06 PM EST / CBS

While most Russians were busy coping with a financial crisis and a government shake-up, some young Russians this fall were getting their MTV, reports CBS News Senior European Correspondent Tom Fenton.

Music Television opened its new Russian language channel in September, bringing Madonna, Michael Jackson and even cartoon stars Beavis and Butt-Head to Russian viewers.

But everything hasn't been in complete harmony for the new station. It's had to change its plan to show Russian music at least half of the time. That's because Russian musicians (like everyone else in the country) have been hit by the financial crisis. And they're having trouble keeping the music playing.

Vassily Strelnikov, one of MTV's local hosts, grew up outside Washington D.C., but he has been working in the Russian music business for years. He says that Russian MTV will have to show more western music, because Russian bands can't raise the cash these days to make videos and cut albums.

"The local showbiz world is going through a crisis of its own, partly connected with money problems, partly connected with the fact that they have no studios to go to and basically compose the music, work on the music, record the stutf," says Strelnikov.

Bands like Detsky Panadol, which is in a studio recording its second album, have been hit hard. The group has no record company behind it, so the members of the band have scraped together the money to record themselves.

Singer Yuri Krott says Russia's a hard place for young bands to get a break, because the industry is not as mature as it is in the United States.

Detsky Panadol will try to make money by selling its album in music markets, but it will be a tough sell even when the latest Western and Russian pirate CDs carry price tags of under three dollars. Few Russians outside the capital can find the spare rubles to buy anything but food these days.

While rock bands have seen their incomes drop, Russian MTV has seen its advertising all but dry up. Staff members recently took a pay cut to keep the station on the air. Even MTV's own performers say they don't know if the station will still be on the air in a year from now.

"Because this crisis ... it just revealed that we have no ground, no soil under our feet," says MTV Russia's Tutu Larsen. "So we're just hanging between skies and earth and I don't know what will happen tomorrowÂ… I don't want Russia to change again into the same stuff we've been for 70 years."

Strelnikov says that MTV Russia might be just what the doctor ordered to help the country weather the current storm.
"During the worst of situations, people have a tendency to have a glass of vodka and laugh it off. They make jokes aboput it. That's what's so crazy about the Russian character in general, and I guess MTV Russia is part of that. It's freezing out there. People are freezing in their apartments. And yet when they turn on the television they have MTV Russia."

Still, MTV's staff is trying not to sing the blues. They're hoping that Russian MTV can have a positive effect, actually encouraging new Russian videos and albums by giving them a place to air. It will take time to see if despite the tough times here, Russians can hold on to their MTV.