Pozner (Познер) is a Russian talk show hosted by Vladimir Pozner (Владимир Познер). It’s been airing weekly since 2008: there are 9 seasons and almost 250 hour-long episodes.
The show features Pozner interviewing major figures in Russian society: politicians, artists, athletes, scientists, and others. The guest discusses various topics, often contemporary events, with Pozner, and also answers questions taken from random Russian people (a segment known as “Vox populi”).
Pozner himself is a Russian-American journalist and writer. Born in France, he grew up in the US, but his family was forced to leave during the McCarthy era, and they went to the USSR (first East Germany, then Russia). Pozner went to university in Moscow and began a career as a journalist after graduating, working for both Russian and American radio and television news shows. He hosted several “TV bridges” (телемосты—sort of like the first form of videoconference) between the US and Russia in the 1980s. In 1991 he moved back to the US to cohost a TV show with Phil Donahue, Pozner and Donahue, which aired on CNBC for most of the 1990s. He moved back to Moscow in 1997, however, and from then on has hosted a series of Russian talk shows and political shows on TV and radio.
Perhaps because of his experiences living in the US, Pozner seems to have a different political outlook than some Russian media figures. He brought criticism from 1 Kanal, on which his show airs, when he mentioned that they had forbidden him from having major political opposition figure Aleksey Navalny (Алексей Навальный) as a guest. However, he seems committed to staying in Russia.
Director: Roman Butovskiy (Роман Бутовский)
Host: Vladimir Pozner (Владимир Познер)
Production company: Direktsiya sotsialnykh I publisticheskikh programm Pervogo kanala (Дирекция социальных и публицистических программ Первого канала)
TV channel: Perviy kanal (Первый канал)
The show’s official site on 1 Kanal.
A recent episode of Pozner, featuring actress Alla Demidova as the guest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO9OaKO3bWM
