Issue #02/57, January 28 - February 10, 1999  

One year ago this week, we documented the rampant waste of Russian network airtime as epitomzed by Yevgeny Kiselov, moustache-sucking host of NTV's Itogi. Kiselov has taken the time-tested Western stereotype of an airhead anchorman and raised it to an art form, where his use of lengthy nasal inhales, spasms of teeth-sucking, and meaningless interjectory phrases have allowed him to piss away more valuable air time than any other anchor in the world. We recorded one unnecessarily long question he posed to SovBez secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha last week and calculated how much it cost his network, assuming an ad rate of $40,000 per minute.

Kiselov's question: Now,you've just brought up the planned all-Russian teacher's protests... Of course we remember the defense worker protests, and of course the miner protests...and so, what I wanted to ask you, in connection with this: this week, we all observed the dramatic events which occurred in Rumania, in which the result of that march of miners was that country ended up virtually on the verge of a full-scale riot. Is a version of that kind of unfolding of events possible here in Russia? It's a question a lot of people are asking themselves: what can the vertical Presidential executive branch do here in order to prevent, um, let's say...of course, the Rumanian situation is probably a worst-case scenario, but let's say something the like the railroad protests, which we remember, the railroad protests of the Kuzbass miners last year, that is, not only the Kuzbass-these things can also happen again?

Elapsed time: 1:13

Actual question: What can the government do to prevent a Rumanian-style political crisis from erupting here?

Actual time needed to pose question: 0:07
Air time wasted: 1:06
Estimated cost to NTV: $44,000*

*Under old advertising rates