Page 83 - TURKRptJun22

bne June 2022 New Europe in Numbers I 83
Russians trade
TV news for social media as war- weariness sets in
Theo Normanton
Trust in TV news among Russians fell by around 10% in April, according to polling conducted by media investment company GroupM. Trust in social media, on the other hand, is up, signalling a possible move away from traditional state-owned media formats.
In April, only 23% of Russians said TV was the information source that they trusted the most, compared with 33% in March. Faith in TV fell most sharply in smaller towns.
The decline could partly be down
to news fatigue driven by the preponderance of stories surrounding the Ukraine war. Updates on military positions and developments in Ukraine have dominated the news cycle in Russia, and have featured prominently in the popular talk shows of pro- Kremlin hawks like Vladimir Soloviev. Soloviev is known for his outspoken views, and has described Ukrainian President Zelenskiy as “a demon who should be exorcised rather than be negotiated with.”
Russia’s second most popular broadcaster, Channel One, has replaced some entertainment shows with extra current events shows, so that the
entire day’s programme is filled with news, with the exception of a short mid-morning period. Of the ten most watched programmes in the first week of May, nine were news and current affairs shows, up from five a year earlier, according to the Economist.
Blocked sites like Instagram and Facebook can still be used in Russia by using a virtual proxy network (VPN) to circumvent internal blocks. Data firm Appfigures says that Russian downloads of the ten most popular VPNs reached 700,000
a day in the month after the start
of the war, against just 16,000 a day the previous month.
Russians can also access a broad range of news sources using social media sites which haven’t been blocked, particularly the popular encrypted messaging service Telegram. Internet user numbers
in Russia have been increasing since the start of a war. 68% of respondents now say they access the Internet every day.
The apparent shunning of TV news may also partly be down to western sanctions against buying advertising time on Russian networks, which
is squeezing the funding of big TV channels like Channel One, Rossiya-1 and NTV. The advertising ban unveiled by the US Treasury on May 8 will deprive the channels of significant advertising revenue from companies like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble, both of whom have already announced that they will stop advertising in Russia.
Turning to Telegram
On the other hand, trust in news on social networks, blogs and Telegram channels increased in April. The proportion of respondents who said that they would believe news from social media more than any other source increased from 19% to 23%.
VPN App Downloads Soar in Russia
Est. Downloads in Russia. Top 10 VPNs. App Store + Google Play
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