MOSCOW, February 25, 2008 Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents information concerning what attitude Russians have towards the pre-election TV debates among the presidential contenders.About half of Russians (47%) watch the pre-election televised debates among the presidential contenders, this includes 23% of respondents who consider them to be important and interesting and 24% who treat them as a TV show. 42% switch the channel so as not to watch the TV debates. Another 7% of respondents do not watch TV at all.The younger the respondents are, the more often they give preference to other TV programmes (cf.: 55% of the youth aged 18-24 years and 33% in the group of “60+” switch the channel). Respondents falling into the age group of up to 45 years old are more likely to treat the pre-election TV debates as a TV show; the viewpoints that the respondents in the age group of 45-59 years have split into two equal parts (27% versus 27%).Do the televised debates help to clear the goals and objectives, as well as mainstreams that the presidential contenders have? 41% of respondents think that they do, nearly as many respondents (43%) adhere to the opposite point of view.Respondents younger than 45 years old tend to think that televised debates are not instrumental in understanding the contenders' directives (44-48% versus 34-41%); respondents older than 60 years, on the contrary, suppose that these discussions help clear out the state of affairs (47% versus 40%); the opinions that the respondents in the age group of 45-59 years have again split into two equal parts (40-42% in each of the two cases).The society treated Dmitry Medvedev’s refusal to participate in the televised debates along with other presidential contenders, rather neutrally: 31% of respondents approve of this type of behaviour, as televised debates are nothing but idle talking; 19% of respondents disapprove of him saying that “he evades open struggle against his opponents”, whereas 37% suppose that every contender has the right to choose whether to participate in the televised debates or not.Every second KPRF supporter (49%) treats Medvedev’s refusal to participate in the televised debates negatively, every third LDPR voter (36%) and every tenth “Unified Russia” supporter (11%) does the same. 16-18% of KPRF and LDPR voters and a twice as high share of “Unified Russia” supporters (38%) approve of this refusal.The initiative All-Russia opinion poll was conducted by VCIOM on February 23-24. 1600 respondents were interviewed each time in 153 population areas of 46 regions of Russia. The statistical error does not exceed 3.4%.