Behavior by Actress Unacceptable, Lithuanian State Radio and Television Director Says

Vilnius, January 7, BNS–Lithuanian National Radio and Television director Audrius Siaurusevičius says the behavior of actress Asta Baukutė was intolerable in a program broadcast in Lithuania Friday where she made gestures mimicking Adolf Hitler, and so the television series has been canceled on the national network.

“We truly do not tolerate this thing and decisions were made yesterday, the show is canceled. Since people are behaving without any sense of responsibility, grave measures were applied. I consider this a personal insult to all my principles,” Siaurusevičius told BNS. He said the national broadcaster broke all contractual ties with television show producer Modestas Karnaševičius’s company Viena Planeta [One Planet] and is not planning to renew any business relations with the company in the future.

“I think we will have nothing to do with them. Our trust has been broken. We work on the basis of trust and cannot supervise everything. They don’t meet the requirements which we demand inside LRT,” the director of LRT said.

Karnaševičius told BNS he’s not yet thinking about how to repair relations with LRT and is now trying to the solve problems which have arisen from Baukutė’s performance on the show “Atspėk dainą” [Name That Tune].

“The show is canceled, and we’re not doing more shows now. This was simply human error. There was just a few seconds of frames there and they were told to cover it up, but it wasn’t. The person missed it and it wasn’t taken out. There was a lot of everything in that program and very much was cut out. Knowing Asta Baukutė and her temperament, her manner, 99 percent was cut out there,” Karnaševičius said.

On the program aired Friday, Baukutė guessed a song was by Simonas Donskovas, stood up and mimed gestures portraying Adolf Hitler. The show had been taped earlier.

After discussion arose over Baukutė’s behavior, deputy LRT director general Rimvydas Paleckis wrote on his facebook page Saturday the show had been canceled and there would be no further filming.

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