In the 1980s, 86% of Soviet adults relied on television coverage as their primary source of news. Yet "Vremya" was seen as "a joke" by many Soviet citizens due to its poor coverage of news events. The coverage of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, for example, was often relegated to lesser news items during the ongoing coverage of the disaster; in contrast, western news media such as "CBS Evening News" led with the story for six consecutive weekdays. Following the evacuation of the nuclear workers' closed city of Pripyat, "Vremya" issued the following brief announcement: