IS KOBZON MORE POPULAR THAN PUTIN?

On September 11, Vladimir Putin, the most prominent newsmaker in Russian mass media, gave ground to Iosif Kobzon as the distinguished singer enjoying the 'Legend Man' honorary title conferred on him by Yuri Luzhkov, celebrated his 70-th birthday. While losing to Vladimir Putin by the number of news items, Iosif Kobzon showed a Favourable Information Index (FII) that nearly doubled that of the President of the Russian Federation. The Favourable Information Index (FII) factors in the sentiment of references to a person (positive, negative, neutral), how significant the news item is and how influential the media title is.According to Medialogia, yesterday the singer's birthday was referred to 36 times in TV items which lasted 56 minutes and 38 seconds in total, whereas TV news items referring to Mr. Putin numbered 16 and lasted just over 30 minutes in the total TV space. Positive comments by TV journalists and birthday greetings from the pages of national newspapers contributed to the major rise in the FII.The following graph built by using the Medialogia information and analytical system shows how the FIIs changed over time, with the peak in Iosif Kobzon's FII.