The TEFI Prize is already quite a long time event for only a small group of people engaged in the television industry. We know some of the winners in person or by last name, but fewer than two or three people awarded Orpheus statuettes this year can recall. I'm not sure there are many people who wish to attend the presentation ceremony.

Surely a similar phenomenon exists in other professions. We do not know the "gas workers of the year" or the owners of the conditional gold aircraft among the pilots of civil aviation.

But when it comes to public people, those who should be if not national favorites, then certainly the most famous people in the country, it's a bit strange. Moreover, we remember that TEFI knew the best times when the winners were heroes, and their programs - real discoveries. But call at least one television discovery of recent years, so that it does not turn out to be a calico from an American show?.

The prize is due to its devaluation not only scandals, which from time to time shook the organizations responsible for its delivery - first the Academy of Russian Television, and now - the Committee of Industrial Television Awards. These conflicts are only external manifestations of powerful processes that are taking place with Russian TV itself.

Having passed at the beginning of the two thousandth under full control of the state, federal television channels finally turned into an instrument of propaganda and deceit. All these years the situation only worsened. All sorts of "winks" to the liberal public, like nighttime film screenings with discussions or famous "forgings" in Posner's program, only underscored the degree of degradation of television.

Over these years, between TV viewers and the state owning TV companies, a kind of social contract was implemented. On the one hand, the state received a monopoly on the coverage and interpretation of socio-political events, as well as their silence in case of need. This also includes the so-called stop lists - lists of undesirable persons. In turn, the entertaining part of the audience received a talk show with Chernukha-bytovuhoy and fights on the air, TV shows about love and money, dances with the stars and the favorite figure skating since Soviet times.

The pursuit of the rating was an excuse for any bad taste. But, it seems, the main goal is to minimize the criticality of the viewer. Between matchmaking and DNA analysis, fatherhood is perfectly fed "rebel Donbass", "crucified boy", "depraved West" and other information slag. And in general it has long been noted that if people are not too demanding before shows, then with them and in everything else is simpler.

Not surprisingly, television has ceased to be the leader of intellectual and cultural development over the years. I'm not talking about symphonic concerts and television performances - this is perfectly handled by the channel "Russia K". But there are no more programs that would change the viewer's attitude, as did, for example, "Quiet House" or "Anthropology". Surprisingly, such people as tele-critics have survived to this day. I sincerely sympathize with them: to observe all this decline and unperturbably try to sort out the innumerable sorts of the tele-barrel - an extremely ungrateful occupation, and, I'm afraid, harmful to health.

TV ceases to produce legendary people. Of those who appeared in the two thousandth, Ivan Urgant can claim this status. Little different from each other, and therefore easily interchangeable boys and girls filled out news and "information and analytical programs", leading talk shows - on the contrary: piece, bright, selective provocateurs and manipulators.

Far from all the problems of television are connected with his merciless exploitation by the state. The Internet comes every year: at first the thinking viewer left there, and then all the others. Why be tied to a stationary box in the corner of the room, if almost the same can be seen when and wherever, even on the phone.

Here, television has to compete with a huge amount of other content, both self-made and more professional, but in any case, not burdened with conventions of formats and on-air policy of channels. The young generation comes to the Internet, even without "going" in front of it to the TV; he already has his idols, which become popular even before the first appearance on television screens.

The Internet is unlikely to be idealized: the mass taste can not get anywhere, just like the pursuit of manufacturers for the same rating - that is, views. This is easy to see, following the top of the Russian YouTube. But one thing that periodically appears here is something fresh, it shoots something inexplicably cool, inspires hope. On the other hand, the new sincerity, for which we liked the television of perestroika, is nowhere to be found, except on the Internet.

The TEFI-2017 ceremony coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the Vzglyad program, a revolutionary show on domestic TV, and at the same time a small but very productive forge of cadres, from which the current leader of the First Channel.

The technical and technological capabilities of television have gone far ahead, the picture has become much brighter, clearer and more thoughtful, but creative progress has been replaced by degradation. And less and less often some new program evoked the question: "What, could it be so?" Not so much ideologically - it was already allowed quite a lot to the appearance of "Look" - namely, creatively. To today's television, not only this - there are no questions at all.

DW.