Channel 18 to Offer Taste of Soviet News Show

While the press in the Soviet Union is enjoying a taste of freedom under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, local television viewers will be able to enjoy a taste of the Soviet press.

For two weeks beginning Jan. 8, foreign-language station KSCI Channel 18 in Los Angeles will air broadcasts of the Soviet Union’s nightly news program, “Vremya,” said to be the most-watched newscast in the world and widely recognized as the most influential news source in that country. The newscasts, which air in prime time in the Soviet Union and are seen by more than 150 million people each night, will be carried locally at 6 p.m. in Russian, with English subtitles.

“We are pleased to offer our viewers another perspective of world news by bringing the Soviet Union’s nightly news program to KSCI,” Ray Beindorf, KSCI’s president, said Friday. “We are optimistic that our two-week test will elicit an enthusiastic response from our viewers. If the interest is as high as we anticipate, KSCI will consider making ‘Vremya’ a regular part of our schedule.”

Generally, KSCI sells blocks of air time to producers who then put their own programming on the air. KSCI is sponsoring these broadcasts itself, however, buying the rights from PSC, Inc., the licensing agent for Gosteleradio, the Soviet state broadcasting organization.

The Rand/UCLA Center for Soviet Studies downlinks the broadcasts at 10 a.m. daily. KSCI employees will edit the 35-45 minute programs down to 27 minutes.

“Vremya,” which means “Time” in Russian, is controlled by the government, and though the broadcast has adopted a more sophisticated visual look in the past year, the program still employs a rather strict, old-fashioned format. It almost always begins with national events--primarily policy directives from the Politburo and Central Committee. If there is no parliamentary session that day, the program will often open with domestic economic stories such as a piece on the bountiful potato harvest in Byelorussia.

After domestic news, the program will then move to international stories and then to pieces on science, culture, the arts, sports and weather. The program almost never leads with an international story unless Gorbachev is traveling abroad. “Vremya” is often used by government officials as a place to break news and is widely quoted by the Western press. Last September, for example, Gorbachev used “Vremya” to address his nation in a 25-minute speech that attempted to answer the growing criticism of his reform programs.

KSCI currently broadcasts nightly newscasts from Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea.