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Letter from Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyark’s TV and radio station AFONTOVO, where I work in management, was founded in April 1992 with the first programs on the air a year later. AFONTOVO shares the market with the official regional TV station and three more independent TV stations: PRIMA-TV, ASK-7 and MEGAPRESS. The regional channel broadcasts on the whole Krasnoyarsk territory, and the independent TV stations covers only Krasnoyarsk (about 3 million and 1 million TV viewers correspondingly). Krasnoyarsk itself, located, more or less, in Central Siberia, has a population of about 1 million and had a strong defense industry component. The state sponsored regional TV station shares channel 4 with the federal TV company RUSSIA. It broadcasts only on week days approximately from 5 or 6 p.m to 10 or 11 p.m.. The programming includes: 7 o’clock news, very few local original programs— Russian Evenings (documentaries and feature films about Russia), Business Courier, Teleguide (with advertising and consumer angle), cartoons for children, music program Europe Plus (acquired on barter terms from the Moscow office of Europe Plus). ASK-7 and PRIMA share channel 11. ASK-7, about one-year old, broadcasts from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and from midnight to 2 a.m. PRIMA about three years old, broadcasts from 6 p.m. to midnight seven days a week. Both the companies have no news programs. Very seldom and not regularly they produce original programs— a special program for women, a public relation show Direct Line, documentaries and feature films. PRIMA has a license from the Ministry of Press. ASK-7 has no license at all but takes advantage of having the sup-port of the local governmental structures. MEGAPRESS (the company was formed about two months ago) broadcasts 6 days a week on channel 6 from 6 to 8:45 p.m. sharing the channel with the federal TV company St.PETERSBURG. They have 8 o’clock news, sport program, show children’s films and feature films. MEGAPRESS has no license but among its founders there are some people from local administration and the Director of Radio and Television Transmitting Centre. AFONTOVO has a state license for mass media broadcasting and a license from the Ministry of Communications of Russia on implementation of communications in the spheres of TV and radio broadcasting. Its own autonomous broadcasting complex insures the independence of AFONTOVO from the state-run TV and radio broadcasting structures. AFONTOVO broadcasts 24 hours a day 7 days a week on 9 meters TV channel in FM 73.23 MHz and uses S-VHS and Betacam equipment, working in a market of 1,000,000. The usual tiresome procedure of getting the license is as follows:
This is a long and laborious process indeed. When AFONTOVO was registered we needed one more license of The Mass Media Ministry and we got it. Then this Ministry was liquidated. At present the special Federal Department on Radio and Television has as one of its functions is to provide licenses for both state and independent TV and Radio stations. But after getting the license many independent TV and Radio stations face the arbitrary rule of the local Sanitary Inspection, of the administration of state Radio and Television Transmitting Centre, of the local administration and so on. Now several drafts of further laws on TV and Radio are under discussion. This law is to work out legal grounds for state and independent TV and Radio stations functioning such as licensing, censorship, ad-vertising limits, etc. But as far as the information we have seen, even this law promises rather a hard life for independent companies. At present one of the variants of Draft Law on Advertising sets advertising limits as 9 minutes per hour and a lot of regulations such as how many times the programs should be interrupted by commercials, what kinds of programs should by no means have any advertising at all. Our TV and radio company has about 95 employees. In the structure of AFONTOVO there are General @ Administrative/ Accounting, Sales, Engineering, Production, Original Programs, News, Programming and Radio departments. Currently AFONTOVO produces a 25 minute newscast which airs at 8:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and a 25-30 minute newscast which airs at 11:30 p.m. Both are live with tape inserts and are repeated at 7:30 and 9:30 a.m. the following morning on tape. News events on the late show are incorporated into the newscast. In addition, the audio track from the late newscast is repeated on the station’s new radio station at approximately 7 a.m. On Saturday in addition to the regular newscast we produce a summary of major news events from the week. Since August 1993 reports by AFONTOVO journalists are broadcast regularly in the program “LOCAL TIME” by the independent television stations of Byelorussia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia in the capitals and major cities of these countries. Since March 1994 this program is aired by OSTANKINO. The station also airs a monthly call-in program, hosted by the Senior Vice President on the 2nd of each month. This program is largely an informational and public relations show for the station. Besides that our company produces a special children’s program “Magic Microphone,” an entertaining show “Lapsha,” a sport’s program “Sport Review,” a program about cars “Auto-focus,” TV game “Attention, Good Luck!,” a special program for women, health program “36.6” and others. AFONTOVO participates in the “YENISEI-SIBIR” satellite TV network of non-governmental TV stations in the region from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean on the basis of Shushenskoye (the satellite “Horizont-90) and receives several hours per day of programming from it. Larissa Malinova (email: root@afon.Krasnoyarsk.edu) |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
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© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
