Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter

Issue 21 Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law September 27, 1995

Kulyk Compares Powers of Kiev and Regions
   Zinovy Kulyk, chair of the Ukrainian State TV and Radio Company, gave his view, August 31, about the federalism aspects of the dispute.
    “Unfortunately, apart from certain political forces, a number of regional councils of people’s deputies have become engaged in the resolution of this issue, as well as the heads of regional state administrations.
    “For instance, in violation of Ukrainian legislation, Mykola Kruhlov, acting head of the Mykolayiv regional state administration, and Pavlo Lazarenko, head of the Dnepropetrovsk regional state administration, issued orders to reorganize television channels. A session of the Odessa regional council has passed a similar resolution.
    “Stepan Volkovetskyy, head of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional state administration, has issued an order regarding his own plan for television transmissions.
    “The leadership of the Trans-Carpathian region wants to make the Trans-Carpathian Radio and Television Broadcasting Center subordinate to the local authorities.
    “In addition, the leaders of a number of regions do not even think it necessary to inform Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting about the discussion and adoption of these kind of decisions.
    “Because of this, Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting officially states that all the resolutions and orders that were passed were grave violations of the current legislation and should not be implemented. It is worth mentioning in this regard that regional television and radio companies, as well as radio and television technical broadcasting centers -in accordance with Ukrainian presidential edict No 12 of 3rd January 1995 and the relevant Cabinet of Ministers resolution -are subordinate solely to the State Committee. Not a single television or radio channel, nor a single transmitter in Ukraine is municipal or private property, not to mention the property of a foreign television company.
    “The technical planning of broadcasting is an exclusive prerogative of Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting, while the right to issue licenses for the use of frequencies belongs solely to the national council for the issuing of TV and radio broadcasting licenses . Thus, interference from other executive bodies is inadmissible.
    “The well-known order by Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting on reorganizing television channels is based on Ukraine’ s Law On Television and Radio Broadcasts, which stipulates that the base of Ukraine’s national television service comprises state television and radio organizations, which have priority use of the national television network (Article 12). Ukrainian presidential edict No 12 of 3rd January 1995 decreed the formation of Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting, one of whose primary tasks is to plan the transmission arrangements for national television and radio (Article 2).
    “Ukrainian presidential decree No 296 of 11th April 1995 approved the regulations of the state committee, which envisaged that, in order to perform its functions, its orders should be mandatory for state bodies; enterprises regardless of their proprietary status; and citizens (Chapter 8).
    “Hence, there are grounds to implement that edict fully. Meanwhile, the attempts to interfere in the solving of problems by certain bodies with representative and executive power in the provinces, as well as political parties and associations, are beyond their competence, are inappropriate and lack vision.
    “We say again that in future, the complex issue of planning and protecting Ukraine’s national television and radio spectrum will be resolved by taking into account the entire range of opinions and wishes, but solely within the limits of existing legislation.”

ORT Reports its Ukrainian Wounds
    It’s interesting to see how Russian Public Television reports the controversy in Ukraine. In a report on August 30, the announcer reported that there had been a shift in favor of carrying ORT once again:
[Reporter]     The Donbass Donets Basin region of the Ukraine is once again watching ORT because of a return to the previous transmission arrangements. Nationalist organizations have condemned the move to bring back ORT in certain regions. They have called for the leaders of Nikolayev Region, which was the first to dare to return to the old channel allocation, to be punished.
    In the Donbass, support for ORT played a decisive role. In view of the region’s uniquely--it has a large ethnic Russian population--Kiev gave permission to reverse the channel reallocation following talks with the regional administration.
But that wasn’t the end of the matter. These people are calling for ORT broadcasts to be restored in full and for the regional television and radio company to be taken off channel one altogether. But where is it to put its programmes? It is forbidden to broadcast on the first and second national channels.
    The dispute brings irreconcilable foes into conflict. One side sees the situation with ORT as the beginning of discrimination against Russian-language broadcasting as a whole. Those who advocate squeezing out ORT say that the Russian channel has no more right to the state territory than French or German television.
    The State Committee on TV and Radio Broadcasting does not conceal its disappointment at the passive stance taken by the Russian side. .
    It seems that there will be no solution to this problem without Russian input and bilateral agreements.

Sergey Blagovolin, Director-General of ORT, Addressses Future
    In late August, Blagovolin launched a mini- public relations campaign on ORT’s “new look and broadcasting philosophy. In an interview with ITAR- TASS, Blagovolin reasserted ORT’s commitment to “continued reform and strengthening of stability.” He also expressed his views in an interview in the Russian newspaper Juranty’ from which the following is excerpted.
[Q]     Sergey Yevgenyevich, let us look at the conflict between ORT and Ostankino from your perspective. Will it ever end? Perhaps some compromises have been found?
[Blagovolin]     In my opinion, an absolutely natural process took place (and has already ended, by the way). All the rumours and hysteria surrounding it are terribly overblown. That monster, Ostankino, which employed about 8,000 people, filling all these enormous buildings and all this office space, simply outlived its welcome. It turned out to be completely unsuited to functioning in a market economy -the sort of economy that exists in more than 200 countries that at least stand on their own feet. The time comes when you have to pay for electricity and salaries have to be earned instead of just being given to you by someone. But people could not change their way of life, and Ostankino began to disintegrate.
    All the independent production companies - ATV, REN-TV and others -this was the beginning, and ORT was just a logical development in this process. When ORT came on the scene, Ostankino ceased being a broadcaster, but remained as a producer of television programs. And now everything is very simple. If Ostankino shows itself capable of producing good, distinctive programs for sale at a reasonable price, we will happily buy them.
    In my opinion, the saturation of Russian television with Western programs has reached a critical point; it is time for national programs and topics to find their proper niche. From this standpoint, ORT and Ostankino need each other very much.
    And all this talk in the Duma, accusing us of the swindle of the century, leaves me with a bad taste. We don’t own anything here at all! This office, the equipment, everything has been leased from the Television Technical Centre, in other words from the state. We only own broadcasting licences. And these endless attacks on us, the accusations that we have privatized and grabbed something (although it would be clear even to a hedgehog that we have not grabbed anything and have not privatized anything) are made for purely political motives. . . .
[Q]     Television is the strongest medium in terms of influence on people’s minds. How do you plan to work during the pre-election period?
[A]     The first meeting of the Central Electoral Commission on the subject of covering the election campaign already has been held, but the final rules have not yet been set. Of course, in addition to general rules, each television company will form its own political line. We have already clearly defined our line: No to extremism! We intend to advocate the idea of national accord, a strong state and legitimate authority, the idea of a “Great” Russia in the best sense of the word. (Blagovolin told ITAR-TASS on August 31 that ORT would scrupulously observe the Central Electoral Commission’s guidelines on covering the forthcoming election campaign. He stressed that ORT’s election activity will not be confined exclusively to the commission’s instructions. “We have our political priorities,” he said, “which lie in the direction of continued reform and strengthening of stability in Russia. This fully reflects the interests of society.”)
[Q]     What will be your main thrust?
[A]     It is hard to answer unequivocally, and the thrust should go in several directions. One of the staples of every television company is films. Some very good specialists in cinematography have come to us now. Of course, we want our viewers to watch good foreign films, but we believe that there should be as many as possible of our own good films on the air. This is not a bow to patriotism, we have a great film industry in our country. And besides, those films are about us.
    The second important direction, and also a huge area of work, is information programming. It must be more dynamic, graphic, aesthetically striking. Our most vulnerable point is the “Week in Review” programme. And in general, in my opinion, there is too much rubbish on the channel, which stays there only because it has been there for years. Now would be a good time to have a clean-up.
[Q]     How do you feel about the satirical style that has become fashionable now?
[A]     I do not like satire and I do not think we will have it on our channel. Our general producer Konstantin Ernst shares my opinion. There may be some humorous programmes, but overall I would like the channel to keep its respectability and respect for the viewer.
    As to strictly creative matters, I try not to get into this too much. I am not a television professional and do not want to repeat the mistake of some people, who become convinced that they have become professionals after occupying this chair for a year.
[Q]     Immediately after ORT was formed, you banned advertising on your channel. Now advertising is appearing again. What is happening?
[A]     Some publications say these days: “Aha! They did come back to advertising!” Despite the fact that we said from the very beginning that this was a temporary moratorium. At first we thought we would take a three-month break; four have passed, but we absolutely did not intend to survive completely without advertising.
    If it is the kind of advertising that makes sense, it helps not only the channel, it helps people to live and get their bearings. But the advertising that was on the air before the moratorium was absolutely chaotic, was not taking into account the specificity of the Russian market, and overall, it was unclear who controlled it.
    Now, however, we have defined for ourselves some criteria that advertising on our channel should meet. Here are several of them: honesty from the standpoint of the quality of the goods being advertised; the aesthetic form of the advertising; advertising socially significant goods. We will give all possible encouragement to agencies that deal with Russian advertisers. Thus, our general line of keeping in mind what the country currently needs will also be evident in this.
[Q]     Does the advertising already being shown on your channel meet these criteria?
[A]     Right now there is so little of it that all the desired parameters cannot be squeezed into such a short period of time. But we are already becoming selective and try to give priority to advertising that is needed not only by the channel but also by society. When the two-month tender we are currently conducting is over and we determine the advertising agencies with which we will mostly be working, everything will go smoothly.

Ivan Laptev, New Head of Press Committee, Fires up Troops in Inaugural Remarks
    Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, on July 26, appointed Ivan Laptev, former editor of Izvestiya in the 1980s, to replace Sergei Gryzunov as chairman of the State Press Committee, which, among other things, oversees press subsidies. This is an edited version of his inaugural remarks to staff and to the press.
    The decision to unite me with this job was not an easy one either for the government or for me. Just look at our industry and the state it is in and the Committee itself. I think it would not be an exaggeration, maybe just a very small one, to say that our industry is very close to a point beyond which it will be possible to say that it lies in ruins. Unfortunately, the Committee for the Press is not in its best shape either.
    There are objective reasons for this--the whole country is in dire straits--and subjective reasons too: we have this practice of management under which a lot of attention is paid to small structures, while the entire printing business which makes up a huge portion of total costs was largely neglected.
    This has led to a situation where the book becomes unavailable in many Russian regions, where the exchange of books, without which it is impossible to maintain the country’s information system, has been reduced to the minimum and impeded. We have a situation where the fixed assets of the printing business are almost worn out. By the year 2000, 92 percent of all the printing equipment will have to be replaced. And indeed this is already the case.
    And it is part of our problem and it was our mistake that we didn’t raise these questions vigorously enough before the government, before the public, that we did not attract media attention to this problem.
    It is important to stress the role of the Committee for the Press and the former ministry. Dividing attention between different areas of activity, partly due to subjective reasons, we have come to such a state of affairs. We have not met with great success in the personnel policy within the Committee. I am ashamed to say, but, to quote the words of Viktor Sergeyevich Rozov, the sycophancy and apple-polishing which has flourished within these walls humiliates people and for some strange reason makes them forget about their dignity. The personnel decisions of which colleagues, and sometimes deputy presidents were the last to learn, did not improve the quality of the staff. As a result, many top-notch professionals have quit from the Committee. And we will have to think hard to make sure that our staff includes not only those who specialize in “wrestling under the carpet”, but genuine specialists who have professional skills. This is a major challenge.
    Today the federal government owns 1,800 printing facilities, large and small. These printing facilities and the publishing houses that we have employ more than 70,000 people. Staff reductions continue, but the industry is still labor-intensive and material-intensive and capital-intensive. These capitals were hardly invested at all in recent times and the situation is fairly complex because in developing the budget for 1996 the Finance Ministry and the Economics Ministry are prepared to allocate 53 percent of what we need. And adjusted for inflation we have the same level of financing as this year, which is close to zero. And things are compounded by erratic financing. I mention this to give you an idea why I am very concerned and alarmed as I assume this office.
    I think a lot of hard work, spade work, lies ahead for all of us in order to stop the degradation of an industry without which society cannot exist, without which the state cannot exist and the people cannot exist. To cater to the political and cultural, and scientific and educational and many other needs of the population, the main instrument from childhood is the book, the newspaper and the magazine.
    I would now want to address first of all the senior members of the Committee and issue some instructions. First. The personnel department, Stanislav Ivanovich Strizhnev, shall draw up an order of the day on my taking over of this post starting with today. Also indicated in it, I am instructing this to Valentin Ivanovich and Valery Alexandrovich Sirozhenko, shall be the need to organize an extensive auditor inspection of the entire activities of the Press Committee, the entire interaction of the Press Committee with the economic subjects with which we are in any form of economic relationships, so as to determine what we have, what is our present situation. Third. Vladimir Alexandrovich Sirozhenko, the entire legal department, you shall immediately scrutinize all the agreements concluded by the Committee or its subunits with the economic subjects with which we established business relationships and, on the other hand, also with those media outlets with which we have some constituent agreements.
    Availing myself of the opportunity, I would like to tell the representatives of the mass media department that if I hear once again that we do not have the constituent documents that were signed by the Committee and by which the Committee took upon itself certain obligations, at the time when these documents were and are in the Committee, I will qualify this as an attempt to conceal a certain question and to dodge responsibility. Fourth. It is necessary, I think this is up to Valentin Ivanovich, the legal department, Sergei Alexandrovich Kushelev and Tatyana Dmitriyevna Blestkina, to check what we have on balance, to get a full picture of what we have on balance, in what state that is, what is the cost of what we have on balance, where this is located, by whom this is being used and on what grounds.
    Fifth, obviously Vladimir Mikhailovich Lebedev will have to work hard here and check how the research and development funds have been used, who signed the contracts, including those to make some analytical reports of which I have seen none so far, unfortunately, what those organizations with which we singed these contracts are like, on what conditions these contracts were signed, that is, where are the orders, who signed these orders, and what are the results of the implementation of these contracts. This was done quite a while ago and this is the time to start seeing the first results.
    Lastly and, perhaps, most importantly, we need to expand the commission which prepares the ground for the implementation of the government’s resolution to cut the staff by 10 percent and merge the divisions of the federal bodies of executive power. I know that some work has been done to cut the staff, but we need to look at this problem in a broader context. The second part of this resolution, that is the merger of the Committee’s divisions, should also be taken into account. I suggest particularly that we appoint a trade union representative to this commission. It will be headed either by Valentin Ivanovich or Alexei Borisovich who asked me to relieve him of his duties today. We will work this out later. In the meantime I want this order and I ask you, Valentin Ivanovich and Alexei Borisovich and Valery Alexandrovich, to work to ensure that this order is comprehensive enough to cover all major aspects which are critical to our efforts to improve the Committee’s performance.
    I hope that my tough words and instructions have not hurt anyone because business comes first. I hope that all this will be prepared promptly and we will soon be able to get down to business. If we fail to sort out our internal problems in the Committee, it will be very hard for us to present our case.

Electoral Commission Finalizes Media Guidelines for December Elections
    On September 20, the Central Electoral Commission in Moscow released the final version of guidelines for state- owned media coverage of the parliamentary campaign, ITAR- TASS reported on 20 September. Between 15 and 20 blocs will receive 30 minutes of free air time on state- owned television and radio between 7 and 10 a.m. as well as 30 minutes between 6 and 11 p.m. Television and radio companies will not be allowed to edit or interrupt campaign programs prepared by the parties. In addition, beginning on 5 November, all parties will be guaranteed space for campaign materials in state- run national and regional papers. In a separate directive published in Rossiiskaya gazeta on 13 September, the commission announced that journalists who are themselves running for parliament or are authorized representatives for a political party or electoral bloc will be prohibited from covering the campaign in the mass media.
    One of the big issues over the summer was the extent to which campaign opportunities on the private media would become available, be prohibited. The final version of the commission’s rules does not appear comprehensively to regulate campaign coverage in the privately owned media. For example, according to Eric Johnson of Internews, there are no guidelines now for how non- governmental media should work during the campaign period, except that the prices for buying advertisements during the campaign on independent television stations must be published, and made known to the local election commission, so as to assist them in the monitoring of campaign spending.
    Earlier proposals of the Electoral Commission, floated in August, would have prohibited all political advertising on private radio and television. The Central Electoral Commission, at that time, advanced a controversial proposal that would allow only fully state-owned radio and television companies to devote air time to campaign-related appearances by candidates or campaign advertising. Under the then- proposed guidelines, after 15 November state-owned companies would devote some free air time to political parties and could also accept paid political advertising, but other stations, including privately-owned NTV and partly-private Russian Public TV (ORT), would be prohibited from broadcasting political ads of any kind. Media leaders almost unanimously criticized the proposal. Anatolii Lysenko, chairman of fully state-owned Russian TV (Channel 2), which would benefit from the proposal, charged that such restrictions would lead to an “official” and an “unofficial” campaign.
    An article in Segodnya, on 8 August, accused the leaders of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s bloc Our Home Is Russia of trying to take over key electoral procedures in order to guarantee victory in the December parliamentary elections. The author called the later- dropped ban a “shameless” attempt to limit other parties’ access to the media during the campaign.
    In a document approved and released on 28 July, the Central Electoral Commission had asked all politicians running for parliament to refrain from using media appearances for campaign purposes until they are officially registered as candidates, ITAR-TASS reported the same day. In addition, the commission asked editors not to give air time or space in print to any political figures, “regardless of their official position and political views, for campaign agitation” before the campaign officially begins on 17 September, three months before scheduled Duma elections. The commission did not specify how remarks by government officials or Duma deputies in the mass media concerning policy matters could be distinguished from campaigning.
    The August 8 Segodnya article also claimed that high-ranking government officials, many of whom are also leading figures in Our Home Is Russia, were appearing already on radio and television nearly every day during news broadcasts, leading some to charge that Chernomyrdin’s bloc would in effect receive the “free political advertising” denied to other parties.
    According to an Interfax report, 13 September, Sergey Kalashnikov, chairman of the State Duma committee for social policy, told a news conference that the prices for advertising political leaders’ programmes in the mass media during the ongoing election campaign turn the press into street muggers,” robbing the candidates of all their belongings.”
    The press will be labelled “for sale” and so will the deputies after the elections. The future Duma will be discredited even before it starts working, he added. Kalashnikov said one minute of airtime on Russian Public Television (ORT) cost 30,000 dollars, while the election campaign of one candidate was estimated at 50,000 to 200,000 dollars. “Any normal person honestly earning his money cannot own such amounts,” he claimed.
    Kalashnikov said he had a video cassette with recordings from programs of various channels where indirect political advertisements were paid as commercials. At the same time, Kalashnikov stated that he did not seek lower election advertising prices, but wanted both deputies and journalists to “realize that we are puppets of a show and we are being thrust into a situation which we will come out of with mud all over us.”
    (Some of the above is adapted from reports prepared by Laura Belin for OMRI. For more information write info@omri.cz).