Izvestia: “Vladimir Putin suggests KVN members start doing serious business”
The prime minister suggested that KVN teams record their own programmes and sell them on TV.
Vladimir Putin visited the former Havana Cinema, which will become the new home of the legendary KVN show (a question and comedy TV show). The Moscow government has already begun renovating the dilapidated cinema hall and is turning it into a modern youth centre. Alexander Maslyakov, the irreplaceable host of the show, told Izvestia that the renovation works were due to be finished in December 2012. Vladimir Putin, a big KVN fan, was the first to inspect the construction site. He answered KVN members' questions and suggested they start making money from their hobby.
After a short tour of the site, Mr Putin talked to the KVN Major League players. There was some joking around, but there were many requests for the prime minister. KVN members from Chelyabinsk for example asked if it was possible to open these types of centres in large cities. The prime minister liked the idea but forwarded the young people on to the governors and mayors to ask them to allocate money for the purpose.
A member of the Sega Mega Drive team told Mr Putin that they were now going to have a professional TV studio and could record their own shows but did not know where to broadcast them. He asked Mr Putin to help them open a separate TV channel. The prime minister seemed to be tiring of all the requests and told the young man how to make money without relying on the help of the government. "Millions of people like KVN, you realise that you already have a market, a strong market. You simply need to understand how to sell your product. Modern communications provide many opportunities to do this and they cost almost nothing," Mr Putin said. He noted that it was more profitable to sell content than to open a separate channel. He was sure that this could become a good business, because the number of channels would grow and would require quality content as a result of the transition to digital TV.
KVN members did not forget about the recent news. One of the players asked Mr Putin if he was really planning to return to winter time because it would mean "he would get an extra hour in bed before work." The prime minister did not appreciate the joke and told him that the decision had not yet been made. "Some problems started arising, a three-hour time difference from Europe is a serious problem for business. We don't have to stay with this decision, but we need to take a careful look at the practice and not rush into any decisions, we need to consult with the experts. This is my opinion and Dmitry Medvedev's opinion," Mr Putin said.
The prime minister was satisfied with the pace of the construction of the new KVN building. He gave instructions for the building to be transferred to KVN just a couple of months ago, but huge progress has been made on the construction work: the workers have dismantled the cinema hall, strengthened the foundations and are rebuilding the interior of the former cinema. By the end of the year, the gray building will be transformed into a futuristic youth centre with the huge letters KVN above the entrance. As well as the main hall, the building will have a TV studio, rehearsal rooms and the "The Nest of Kivin" café, a name thought up by Maslaykov himself. Mr Maslyakov also told Izvestia that the building belongs to the city, which is paying for the reconstruction, and will host the Msocow teams' shows. "Only the Premier League shows will take place here. We are planning to have an 800-seat hall, which is quite enough for the Premier League shows. There are thousands of KVN teams in Moscow, and we estimate that it will take about 100 days for all of them to perform on this stage," Mr Maslyakov said.
Anastasia Novikova
