Putin will combine this year’s TV call-in marathon with his annual press conference in December

Vladimir Putin won’t host a marathon call-in show on television this year. The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the news agency TASS on Wednesday that a “direct line” in 2020 would be “excessive,” given Putin’s multiple national addresses already this year.

“With Putin’s annual press conference in December, we’ll certainly try to add some elements of the direct line to allow the president to get feedback from citizens in different regions,” Peskov said.

Since 2001, Vladimir Putin has typically held two major live-televised press conferences: a “direct line” call-in show with carefully selected questions from citizens around the country, and a December question-and-answer session with both foreign and domestic journalists. Both events usually run several hours long. Putin has canceled the “direct line” only twice before — in 2004 and 2012.