The current head of Mlynská dolina, Martina Flašíková, is no newcomer to the television industry. And given the criteria for her to become the general director of STVR, she can’t even be. Flašíková wandered behind the scenes of show business long before she got an important post. She knows Telerazhlas intimately not only from the management chair, but she herself once participated in its program offer.
The singer Jakub Petraník recently recalled how in the early days of television she worked as a producer in the show Slovakia is looking for a SuperStar and used her creativity much later in the position of program director. Somewhere in between, the satirical show Pumpa, which Flašíková had under her thumb, was also broadcast. Actors Dano Heriban († 43) and Michal Kubovčík did not put a napkin in front of their mouths at the pump, which was not always met with the understanding of the parties concerned. Especially the supporters of the politicians of the current coalition, who wore opposition jerseys at the time, foamed and roared.
Pumpa’s biggest scandal was the events after the suicide of police general Milan Lučanský († 51). The then Minister of Justice Mária Kolíková appeared on the show and, according to critics, the participants of the show should have inappropriately commented on Lučanský’s death. The members of the RTVS Ethics Commission also got up from their chairs. “The commission agreed that discussing such a sensitive topic as the death of a person, moreover, in the period immediately after the event, can be perceived as exceeding the appropriateness level from the point of view of the assumed ethical standards of the company and also of the public broadcaster expressed in the statute of program workers and associates of RTVS.” the then director of television, Jaroslav Rezník, quoted the opinion of the commission.
Flašík’s right hand objected to the criticism. “The theme of the show was not at all based on the death of Mr. Lučanský. It was only one of the motives that were related to the guest. Our effort is to present all viewpoints within the dialogues of the central characters and to present the topic in a balanced way. We leave the final opinion on the presented problems to the viewer. We also approached the topic of the tragic death of Milan Lučanský,” the director of the series, Peter Begányi, responded at the time.
It is interesting how fate arranged it and how things finally worked out. Today, few people remember the satirical show where they joked about each other in a criss-cross way, but the career path of Martina Flašíková and Petr Begány took a stellar direction. Pumpa’s mother is today the most powerful person in STVR, and director and producer Begány became the director of Slovak Television.
It is curious that the head of the television station was elected to the position last year by the part of the political spectrum whose humor show once skillfully drank blood. Martina Flašíková does not talk about Pumpa’s return, but criticism has not escaped her even in her current managerial position. A part of the cultural community and the opposition claims that it should work for the benefit of the government, silences critics and censors. The analysis of the Council for Program Services, according to the website, indicates an imbalance with the fact that the most frequent political party in STVR talk shows was the Smer party and a lot of PR for the Minister of Voice. The leader of the opposition Michal Šimečka from Progresívne Slovenska was given space on television and radio up to the tenth position in the ranking. It was ruled by Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Martina Flašíková stands by her actions, she rejected bias in the past and in a recent open letter to the cultural municipality, she said that as the general director she cannot accept that public media platforms are used for political expressions. “For such discussions, we have dedicated formats and shows within the broadcast that are intended for this,” she stated after putting a stopwatch on the broadcast of the music awards, where several critical voices were heard. He faces a call to resign for this.
