Talk:Tele7ABC

Reference

Postul Tele 7 Abc - Post de avangarda in perioada pionieratului televiziunilor particulare, Tele 7 Abc a intrat in istorie drept un personaj colectiv care la un moment dat nu a mai suportat presiunea si a dat faliment. Nimeni nu va uita insa nenumaratele caractere pe care postul din Piata Victoriei le-a dat: Mihai Tatulici, Radu Cosarca, Mircea Badea si Teo Trandafir, Dan Diaconescu etc.

Translated:

“ The station Tele 7 Abc - main station in the time of the privately owned [Romanian] stations, Tele 7 Abc entered history as a collective character that at a time didn't handle the pressure and went bankrupt. [...] ”

--Anime Addict AA (talk) 17:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - there's still a lot of information in the article that doesn't appear in the listed source, but at least that's a start. --Alvestrand (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 10:46, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from being the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" in 1995 to showcasing belly dances in 1996, and to coverage of witchcraft in 1999?

• Source: 1. Mioara Caragea, "Lux & calm, dar fără voluptate", in Litere, Arte, Idei. Supliment de Cultură al Ziarului Cotidianul, Vol. V, Issue 28, July 1995, p. 2: Tele 7abc [este] va să zică rezervația intelighenției opozante, zoo-spațiul hărăzit întru derulare spiritelor pufos răzvrătite, egocentrice și europenizante, aflate în căutarea dilematică a unei alternative.
  2. Gabriela Hurezean, "Tevemania. Rendez-vous din ombilic", in Tineretul Liber, 26 November 1996, p. 7: între toate emisiunile Tele 7 abc-ului (făcute cu profesionalism și imaginație) una face notă discordantă: 'Rendez-vous la Tele 7'. O urmăresc de câtăva vreme (mai mult din masochism decât din curiozitate!) și pot spune fără mustrări de conștiință că ediția de sâmbăta trecută a fost ceea ce în limbaj popular se cheamă bomboana pe colivă. Show-ul a fost gândit pe principiul serbărilor de bâlci. [...] Sâmbăta trecută, 'vedeta' programului a fost o dansatoare din buric care poate face carieră în Turcia, Cipru sau pe la nunți țigănești, dar nu are ce căuta sâmbătă seara pe unul din posturile de mare audiență
  3. Adrian Cioroianu, "Povești suprapuse. Nopți de Sînziene, cu ghicitoare și parapsihologi", in Dilema, Vol. VIII, Issue 385, June–July 2000, p. 5: Unul dintre iluștrii media-parapsihologi ai națiunii spunea într-o emisiune tv, că, după toate aparențele, Ceaușescu în persoană a avut la curtea sa o vrăjitoare țigancă pînă prin anii ’80. Conducătorul o cunoscuse în ilegalitate, cînd stătuse ascuns într-o șatră (!), și după 1944 o luase pe lîngă el, astfel că ghicitoarea a ajuns să locuiască în Primăverii (Ion Țugui în dialog cu Aristide Buhoiu, Tele7 abc, 9 nov. 1999). Nu trebuie să vă surprindă că dl Buhoiu, gazda respectivei emisiuni, a rămas bouche bée de emoție.

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Akilagpa Sawyerr (lawyer)

5x expanded by Dahn (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 123 past nominations.

Dahn (talk) 16:31, 10 April 2026 (UTC).

• ALT 1: ... that, in 2000, nighttime programming on Romania's Tele7ABC consisted of the overweight poet Adrian Păunescu and a "crumpled blue curtain"?
  Source: A. R., "Tele-comando. Tele7abc: Cu vădită satisfacție", in România Literară, Issue 26/2000, p. 18: Senzaţia e ca la orice oră din noapte ai comuta (fie şi din greşeală) pe Tele 7, dai peste Adrian Pâunescu — aşezat la o măsuţă prea mica pentru un gabarit atît de mare —, pe un fundal ieftin, de perdea albastră încreţită, dirijînd, cu vădită satisfacţie un delir verbal de cele mai multe ori retrograd şi revanşard.
  Dahn (talk) 20:59, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dahn: I think the first hook is interesting, but could be made a bit shorter. I propose ALT0a: ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from being the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" in 1995 to showcasing belly dances in 1996? 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 16:35, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

No objections from me. Dahn (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dahn: Long enough, new enough (not picking on your noms, by the way; this was the next oldest at TM:TDYK). QPQ done and Earwig is clean. Not seeing a reason for a maintenance template, although perhaps one or two sections could take some subheadings. ALT0a is the best hook of the above, but we definitely can't have that quote unattributed; what other highbrow things could go in there?--Launchballer 01:34, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Test, see my talk page for context.--Launchballer 23:33, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

There was a problem with this particular page on the device I was using, but it seems to work on this other one. To the point: I was under the impression that quotes from RSes can be used as "facts" in hooks, based on precedents. It now appears that these precedents have been overruled (there are no recent examples in the DYK archives), which I guess is more consistent. On that note, how's ALT0b: ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from being seen by critics as the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" in 1995 to showcasing belly dances in 1996? Dahn (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

@Dahn: Apologies for dropping this. "academic Mioara Caragea" is not "critics".--Launchballer 11:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

@Launchballer: Please propose a phrasing that would overcome this fault of the hook. Dahn (talk) 14:04, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Caragea is one critic. If you're alright with ALT0c: ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from a critic seeing it as the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" to showcasing belly dances in a year?, I'll call for another reviewer.--Launchballer 11:10, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

@Launchballer: That looks absolutely fine. Dahn (talk) 10:54, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Like where ALT0b and ALT0c are going but it's still a mouthful. Proposing:

• ALT0d: ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from being called the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" to showcasing belly dances in a year?
• ALT0e: ... that Romania's Tele7ABC went from being called the preferred TV channel of "a dissident intelligentsia" to showcasing belly dances the following year?

This nomination just needs a final review of the latest proposed hooks I just added to the mix. Happy for Launchballer or anyone else to review/re-review. Cielquiparle (talk) 11:12, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

ALT0d's snappier. Approving.--Launchballer 11:14, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Political bias

I'm not very familiar with Romanian politics, but I think it's obvious that the whole thing is written from the political perspective of the Romanian pro-Western centre-right and only the assessments of sources with that political orientation are cited as authoritative. This is clearly what determines the value judgements, approvals and disapprovals that the article expresses and transmits. When the TV operated as a pro-Western centre-right outlet, everything it did was good, commendable and successful; when its political orientation changed, everything it did was bad, laughable and a failure. I suppose that the justification will be that there are no reliable sources with any other political perspective than a pro-Western centre-right one (this is just 'the only normal position'). On the one hand, it's true that this stance is generally hegemonic in Eastern European academia and media, which is likely to influence what sources are available. On the other, given that not everyone in Romanian society belonged or belongs to pro-Western centre-right - as is clear from the text itself - there must exist other sources and assessments as well. Of course, which sources are considered reliable is a matter of editor consensus, and an editor's opinion on which sources are reliable is likely to be influenced by her/his political views. In any case, the fact remains that the article ends up reading like a partisan screed. Anonymous44 (talk) 15:54, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

The article itself takes no sides, but presents what sources have said. The sources are selected the way they usually are: newspapers of all biases, magazines published by the Writers' Union of Romania etc. The claim that national communism (which I myself do not even see as entirely or even predominanty negative, at the very least in its contemporary setting) is criticized only from the right, or seen as "left-wing" (it is equally maligned as "neofascist") is laughable: authors cited here for their commentary are just as much left- as right-wing; Ghiu and I. M. Nistor are on the "progressive left", and deplore Ceaușescuism as socially conservative, while Rogozanu is, I believe, a self-described Marxist. In fact, mockery of Diaconescu's claims about advertising revenue is sourced here to Jurnalul Național, which was also noted as a venue for "posher" national-communism, and ended up employing Păunescu when he left Tele7. (Shall we note that, as you will be able to read in the text, Păunescu himself became a critic of Tele7's editorial line?)

I would also like to point out our WP:FRINGE policy: Tele7, whether good or bad, became so irrelevant in terms of actual watchers that any defense of its programming, to the measure where it exists (I couldn't find any -- though I set out to include all viewpoints, and though I specifically included the more charitable reviews, alongside the scathing) was itself fringe. As is clear from your own claims, you note that the virtual totality of Romanians did not share Tele7's agenda, in that they tuned out (I will repeat: this includes demographics verifiably outside the "center-right" you assume as normative and biased); yet you also believe, with no evidence whatsoever, that other sources and/or viewpoints must exist -- where? what are the citable sources that uphold post-1998 Tele7 as a model of journalism or entertainment, and are themselves quotable?

Feel free, for instance, to document how many of Romania's "revisionists", namely those who argue that Ceaușescu wasn't all bad (as he surely wasn't), follow this up with "because he was being guided by benevolent witches". National-communism may be fringe, or it may not; but national-communism with paranormal triggers is indeed very fringe, even within national-communism itself. (Much of the same goes for the breed of national-communism that's centered on Securitate worship -- since the more mainstream Ceaușescu apologists see the party as the more benevolent factor, and the secret police as inherently suspicious, a leftover from the "foreign" communism of circa 1950, and even as the network that betrayed and murdered Ceaușescu in collusion with the collective West. My actual bias being that they actually have a point, and that the whole narrative we're being fed about the Revolution is a Securitate fabrication: the more cynical Securitate ringleaders, those whose jobs were exclusively about manipulating and repessing Romanians, simply renounced communism, blamed the party and counterintelligence operators for everything wrong in the previous 4 decades, and preserved full control of government under "capitalism". And they were probably more in control of "right-wing" or "progressive Europeanist" groups than they ever were of the Iliescu--Dragnea groups -- they used the former two, but they had to accommodate the latter two as worthy adversaries, and as the only viable remnants of the communist party. The "anticommunist" and "anticorruption" schemes, hysterically peddled by people with a proven Securitate background, and exclusively targeting Iliescu/Dragnea associates, are best accounted for by this theory. But I digress.)

Lastly: if you believe that there was also a bias against Tele7 whenever sources describe its production values as cheap and their shows as camp, you may easily test out this theory yourself. Mirela and Șerban's show, for instance, has a few fragments preserved on YT; so does Buhoiu. Go watch them. Once you do, you may discover that the critics were not biased at the very least about the aesthetics of it. Dahn (talk) 17:19, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

I must say I take objection in particular to this portion: "[the article claims] when its political orientation changed, everything it did was bad, laughable and a failure". It is simply mendacious.

First off, objections about the declining quality came well before any change of bias, and reflect the fact that Tele7 was underbudgeted. This is clearly present in the article.

In fact, the very move to change political standards, with Buhoiu's recruitment, was probably an attempt at tapping into demographics that were not reached by other stations (nationalists, Ostalgics etc. -- all of them with legitimate grievances); the strategy, therefore, was in bringing in new viewers, those who would never watch liberal-Westenized-cosmopolitan channels, and who could not care less that these channels were better produced and more affluent. However: the fact remains that it still dropped dramatically in audience scores, meaning that those categories were socially irrelevant or that they simply would not watch Tele7, no matter what messaging it did. And another fact: the station continued to do all that on a pitifully small budget, resulting in a combination that was indeed easy to knock, and made prone to money-grabbing, native advertising, sensationalism etc., regardless of whether Tele7's agenda was at all respectable. It was not just "bad" because the posh elites said it was -- it was doing things that were objectively unethical and unlawful.

That said: while sources, even those with the same agenda, universally regarded post-1998 Tele7 as lowbrow, some made clear points about its relative merits. This is also eminently readable in the article, for instance in how it narrates Păunescu's actual role in reporting on the murder of a labor organizer, or in how it quotes commentary about the Diaconescu--Hartner exchanges, which identifies Hartner's plotholes.

Moreover, criticism of the station as simply bad continued, and in fact became even more shattering, after Diaconescu and Buhoiu had been removed, when Andronic and Călinescu, both of them expressing vanilla political views at that time, were in charge. This can also be picked up from even a casual glance.

Obviously, none of this will amend your claims about this article, since they're only an attempt to soapbox and canvass. Dahn (talk) 18:48, 15 June 2026 (UTC)