• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 3, 2022

At the risk of wandering into territory into which the TV Blog almost never dares to venture, today’s commentary urges our TV media giants to consider pulling the plug on all of their current business in Russia in solidarity with Ukraine and the world.

Russians want their MTV? Too bad. They’re not going to get it.

The TV Blog is the first to admit that it knows almost nothing about the ways and means of big business.

In this case, that refers to how giant companies such as Disney, Discovery, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia might go about extricating themselves from complex agreements and arrangements they must have with governments and TV providers abroad.

Naively, I picture some sort of wall of master switches somewhere deep in the world headquarters of these companies that are each labeled with the name of a country.

Then, the only thing anyone would have to do is find the Russia switch and pull it downward to the off position and it would be da svidania, Animal Planet (that’s Russian for goodbye).

Which is to say, a plea for U.S. TV companies to join the business exodus from Russia might be entirely fanciful.

But at the same time, every company in America, if not the world, should be beset by a nagging question: How can we do business with a rogue state run by a dictator who, to put it bluntly, is guilty of carrying out an act of unprovoked mass murder in another country?

And these questions too: How can a company -- TV or otherwise -- countenance the taking of profits in a country whose reckless actions have destabilized the entire world? Shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to destabilize them?

A quotation from the war writings of ancient author Sun Tzu (credited as author of the book now widely known as The Art of War) has been making the rounds lately in the context of the war Russia has unleashed on Ukraine.

The quotation is this: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” I do not know the context of this quotation or whether the author was suggesting that economic strategies be applied to bringing an enemy to heel before resorting to bloodshed.

Here in the present day, the idea of undermining Russia’s economy by various means has taken hold. Several oil companies have announced they are severing relations with Russian oil.

Will other industries follow suit? American media is one of the most pervasive on Earth. Withdrawing some of the world’s most popular TV channels from Russia would send a message, especially if scores of other industries take the same steps.

For the record, an online list of American TV companies doing business in Russia includes these specific networks: Disney Channel (represented by the image above), Fox Russia (identified as owned by Walt Disney Co.) and Fox Life Russia (also Disney); MTV Russia, Paramount Comedy, Nickelodeon Russia, Nick Jr. Russia and Nicktoons Russia (ViacomCBS); Discovery Channel Russia, Animal Planet Russia and TLC Russia (Discovery Networks Inc.); and Cartoon Network and Boomerang Russia (WarnerMedia). There might be others too.

American media companies are known for taking stances on a variety of causes and revising their standards and practices to accommodate social change.

Perhaps a similar standard might be adopted for doing business in a country whose actions threaten the whole world.