{"id":107033,"date":"2021-01-04T10:31:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T10:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=107033"},"modified":"2021-01-04T10:31:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T10:31:18","slug":"tv-bosses-to-be-punished-after-vladimir-putin-was-beheaded-by-a-glitch-during-his-new-years-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/tv-bosses-to-be-punished-after-vladimir-putin-was-beheaded-by-a-glitch-during-his-new-years-message\/","title":{"rendered":"TV bosses to be \u2018punished\u2019 after Vladimir Putin was \u2018beheaded\u2019 by a glitch during his New Year\u2019s message"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV officials in Russia are to be \u201cpunished\u201d after Vladimir Putin was \u201cbeheaded\u201d on screen as he made his televised New Year\u2019s message.<\/p>\n

A channel in Kaliningrad – the country\u2019s most westerly region – blamed a "technical glitch\u201d rather than a political protest for the embarrassing scandal.<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

Only the lower half of the Russian strongman\u2019s head was visible to viewers as addressed the nation against a backdrop of the Kremlin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s annual address is traditionally broadcast a few minutes before midnight in each of Russia\u2019s 11 time zones.<\/p>\n

It has a status akin to the Queen\u2019s Christmas Day message in Britain and the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

But on Kaskad TV, the top of Putin\u2019s\u00a0face\u00a0including his eyes was invisible during his longest-ever New Year\u2019s message.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horrified editors soon realised the error and aborted the broadcast on both television and the internet, replacing it with music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Red-faced bosses at the channel admitted a \u201ctechnical glitch\u201d was to blame and offered \u201csincere apologies to the viewers\u201d though surprisingly not to Putin himself.<\/p>\n

They said an \u201cinvestigation of the incident is ongoing\u201d and menacingly \u201cthose who are guilty will be punished\u201d.<\/p>\n

The statement did not specify the punishments to be meted out, nor name those responsible – though there was speculation about them being \u201cshot\u201d.<\/p>\n

A video of the blunder was recorded by a shocked viewer in Kaliningrad, and the incident sparked\u00a0quick fire\u00a0social media\u00a0comments on his "beheading".<\/p>\n

\u201cWere the guilty shot yet?\u201d asked one commenter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is\u00a0a\u00a0KGB man after all, no-one should see his full face,\u201d posted another.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows that there is only botox up there,\u201d said one more.<\/p>\n

One viewer observed that this was \u201cquite a brave channel\u201d while another predicted: \u201cKaput to Kaskad TV."<\/p>\n

A few minutes earlier, a broadcast of New Year message by the regional governor Anton Alikhanov was screened without mishap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Due to its location on the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad is the last Russian region to hear Putin\u2019s address, an hour after Moscow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His New Year broadcast lasted six minutes, a record for him, but shorter than his predecessor Boris Yeltsin\u2019s famous message ushering in the year 2000, which announced that former KGB spy Putin was the new acting president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He used the broadcast to lament about the difficulties caused by Covid-19, but also to urge Russians to have faith in themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Putin noted that \u201cnot all of us are at the New Year table right now\u201d due to deaths and illness caused by the coronavirus,\u00a0but\u00a0praised the work of doctors and the emergency services.<\/p>\n