Russian prime minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian state TV channels should scrap commercials and change the content of their programs.
“As far as state TV is concerned, it should be free of commercials and its content should be changed,” he said.
He criticized Russian TV for being too “commercialized,” which in turn spurs the TV “to show that someone was murdered, someone was raped, something was stolen or burned down.”
“Unfortunately, people develop certain preferences. One thing leads to another. Instead of cultivating [the audience’s] taste with other examples, they shape it using such [content],” Putin said.
“It seems to me that most citizens are already fed up with criminal stories and other similar nastiness,” he said.
