Nedjeljom u dva

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Aleksandar Stanković (left) and Ivo Banac on Nedjeljom u dva, 7 October 2007
Aleksandar Stanković (left) and Ivo Banac on Nedjeljom u dva, 7 October 2007

Nedjeljom u dva (English: Sundays at two o'clock) is a Croatian television talk show aired every Sunday at 14:00 CET on Croatian Radiotelevision channel 1.

The show, which lasts for an hour, usually features a single guest related to an important political, cultural or economic event that came to light during that week. After a brief introductory segment, the show is basically an interview between the guest and the show's host Aleksandar Stanković.

Another feature of the show is a phone line poll about an issue related to the guest. The poll recently became matter of controversy, when many people, dissatisfied with the results - most notably Andrija Hebrang, high ranking official of the Croatian Democratic Union - accused Croatian radiotelevision of vote stuffing and manipulation. Recently the poll lost much of its importance due to small number of respondents and results that contradict each other every week.

The show started in 2001 and gained a lot of popularity, mostly due to Stanković taking adversarial approach towards the guests and asking all kinds of unpleasant questions. For a while, Nedjeljom u dva enjoyed a reputation of the most influential television show in Croatia. But this reputation was recently put in question when Stanković's approach began to backfire, manifesting itself in straw poll results. It is believed that the trend started with Borislav Škegro and Zlatko Canjuga - two of the most unpopular figures of Tudjman's government - outclassing Stanković during the debates. In recent months Stanković fared the same in the debate with a Serbian journalist Aleksandar Tijanić, while the worst debacle was the debate with Nenad Ivanković, which, according to witnesses, nearly led to physical confrontation after the show.

Another source of controversy is Stanković's tendency to shock viewers with content usually not seen on Croatian daytime television. While most commentators saw his taking off clothes for impromptu photo shoot by Stephan Lupino as harmless, they were appalled by the use of footage from the Srebrenica Massacre tapes and controversial scenes from 1976 film Okupacija u 26 slika - images viewed inappropriate for public television during daytime. In 2008 another controversy erupted after the Slovenian right wing politician Zmago Jelinčič was a guest of the show.

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