Russian TV Losing Its Audience and Public Trust Far More Rapidly than It is in Europe in Part Because of Moscow’s War Propaganda, ‘Re-Russia’ Says Surveys Show

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 20 – A decade ago, television was the dominant source of information among Russians and most of them trusted what they saw and heard on it, but now, the share of Russians who rely on television and trust what it says has fallen significantly, far more so than in Europe, Re-Russia reports.  
    This has happened, the portal says, because of “the extremely conservative, pension-age style, and ideology of Russian television. Older people still listen to and rely on television but younger Russians do not – and the rate at which they have turned away from TV is much greater than is the case in Europe (re-russia.net/review/793/ and fom.ru/SMI-i-internet/15104).
    Given the role that television played in the rise and rule of Vladimir Putin during his first 15 years in office, this change constitutes an increasingly serious challenge to his information policy and political approach because while Moscow TV still attracts some, it alienates others and thus no longer represents the effective tool it was earlier.
    The decline in reliance on and trust in Russian television is especially great among Russians aged 18 to 30, a group only 21 percent of whom mentions television as a source, far less than the Internet. Older groups remain more television-centric, but they are declining in number and thus in the share of the population they constitute.
    Trust in television is also falling. In 2015, 63 percent of Russians said they trusted what they heard on Moscow television. In 2022, that figure had declined to 42 percent; and now it stands at only 39 percent.  Younger and better off Russians give far more trust to Internet sources than they do to television, leaving TV to the older and poorer segments of society.
    On the one hand, this trend is found in many societies and thus reflects a variety of developments in how people use television and the Internet; but on the other, Re-Russia says the Public Opinion Foundation data show that the extent to which Russian television has filled up with war propaganda is playing a major role shifting reliance and trust in TV among Russians.