Viktor Anpilov, the leader of the radical leftist
grouping Working Russia, has announced plans to establish a so-called people’s
television station. He said it would be funded by voluntary donations
. The radical communist told Interfax that about five million roubles
had already been contributed to the fund.
He also said that Working Russia’s television station
should be an independent, nationwide service, with independent news services,
satellite communications systems, its own premises, personnel and equipment.
An organizing committee has already been set up to collect funds.
Radio Russia, Moscow, August 18, 1996
d. Ekho Moskvy radio to start new FM service.
On 5th August Ekho Moskvy radio began the process
of preparing a new FM radio information station, which is to be launched
in autumn 1996, the Ekho Moskvy news agency reported. The station
presently transmits only on mediumwave and the old Eastern European FM
band of 66-73 MHz.
The news report said that the station will broadcast
news bulletins on Mondays every 15 minutes, interspersed with commentaries,
background briefs, sport news, weather reports, motor vehicle news, reviews
and other small format newscasts (up to three minutes).
For the time being, the report added, the information
channel will be on the air between 0600 and 2000 hours [local time] on
Mondays. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays the information
channel will be put out between 0600 and 1000 hours, 1400 to 1500 hours
and between 1800 and 2000 hours with the first 15 minutes of each hour
between 1000 hours and 1400 hours and between 1500 hours and 1800 given
over to news bulletins.
In a separate report with the same release time and
also from the Ekho Moskvy news agency, it was reported that the radio station
had encountered unforeseen difficulties when trying to start broadcasting
on the 88-108 MHz FM band.
It said that the station was granted rights to use an
FM frequency by the decision of a commission of the Russian Federal Service
for Television and Radio Broadcasting of 21st December 1995.
The report ended by saying that the broadcasting authorization
had still not been issued, because the two organizations under the Ministry
of Communications—the Radio research institute and Main Directorate for
the State Supervision on Communication in the Russian Federation—with which
the station signed an agreement on using the frequency, had not progressed
the work for seven months.
Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, August 19, 1996
e. TV3 Rossiya’s expansion plans.
The ‘Argumenty i Fakty’ newspaper reports that the
TV3 Rossiya channel will start operating from September. Residents
of St Petersburg can already watch this channel on cable television.
The channel was founded by the Mayor’s office of St Petersburg together
with a US company [as heard—it is believed that the company is based in
the UK]. Russian Television [Russia TV channel] pays for a third
of its expenses.
The channel can also be watched in Moscow but only in
certain hotels equipped with special aerials. A member of TV3 Rossiya’s
board of directors, Viktor Pravdyuk [phonetic], the husband of Bella Kurkova
and former deputy head of St Petersburg television, has recently revealed
large-scale plans for TV3: As of this autumn it will be broadcasting to
the whole of Moscow on channel 46 on UHF and to 50 other major towns via
the Ekspress-2 satellite. [TV3 already transmits on the 14 degree
west Ekspress satellite].
The channel can be described as conservative and Russian.
It will be showing exclusively Russian archive films, plays and new programmes
and productions. There are plans for the TV3 channel to expand into
Europe; talks on the possibility of TV3 being broadcast to European hotels
and on cable networks are under way. Well-known jeweller Ananov [phonetic]
said he would finance the TV3 office in Paris.
Ostankino Radio Mayak, Moscow, August 1, 1996
2. Among the most important developments over the last months
was the success of Igor Malashenko in gaining control over the Fourth Channel.
Prior to the Presidential election, NTV only had partial use of this “Universities”
channel belonging to RTR, and as we have previously reported, the struggle
between Malashenko and Oleg Poptsov, former head of RTR, over the Fourth
Channel was often a bitter one. Here are several accounts dealing
with NTV’s future and its implication for RTR, headed by Eduard Sagalayev.
a. Russian TV head confirms NTV to get fourth channel.
Sagalayev confirmed the report that the fourth television
channel would be completely given over to NTV [Nezavisimoye Televideniye—Independent
Television]. In saying this, he remarked that this decision had been
influenced by the active involvement of Igor Malashenko and Yevgeniy Kiselev
in Boris Yeltsin’s election campaign. [For an earlier report that
the fourth TV channel had been allocated to NTV, see WM/32 1996, page 14.]
Speaking about news programmes on television, Sagalayev
remarked that in his view the level of truth was lower than in the 1989-1990
period, since, I quote, all journalists are either afraid or have been
bought.
By the way, Sagalayev confirmed that the staff of the
company headed by him are earning considerably less than their colleagues
in commercial TV stations. Sagalayev sees a way out by halving the
staff of Russian radio and TV. It is possible that all staff will
be offered a transfer to the contract system for their professional level
to be confirmed during the subsequent year.
Speaking of the company’s prospects, Sagalayev said
that a project called RTR-Teleset [Russian Radio and TV network] is being
prepared. It is a question of launching two new channels of network
television, one of which will be a sports channel and the other devoted
to films.
Sagalayev said that investors for this project had already
been found . Its implementation will make up for the losses incurred
from the Russian Universities [TV—educational channel].
[On 17th August the Russian newspaper ‘Nezavisimaya
Gazeta’ added: “The resolute intention of the head of the state-run TV
channel to lay off half the staff apparently indicates that, despite the
rumours of his taking another government position, he firmly intends to
remain chairman of VGTRK. It has transpired that the decision to
cut the VGTRK staff comes from Mr. Sagalayev’s desire to transfer the air
time of the Russian Universities [educational TV] channel to the NTV television
company but to leave intact within it a three-hour slot for general knowledge
programmes. At the same time, VGTRK’s budget funding, which covered
two channels in the past, will remain the same and this will improve the
standing of the company, which Eduard Sagalayev intends to turn into a
‘people’s channel’ by cutting the number of political programmes.”]
Radio Russia, Moscow, August 16, 1996
b. Sophia Coudenhove reported on the same developments in The
Moscow Times, August 17, 1996.
Russian State Television and Radio, or RTR, is to
halve its staff this fall as it hands most of Channel 4 to NTV Independent
Television, a senior RTR official confirmed Friday.
The move, which the source said would be implemented
with the beginning of the new television season in September, ends a long
struggle by NTV for a channel of its own.
At present, RTR’s educational “Russian Universities”
program has the channel from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., when it is replaced
by NTV, which broadcasts late into the night.
The official said under the new system RTR would have
only three hours of airtime daily on Channel 4. He said the company
currently employs more than 4,000 people, a few hundred of whom work for
“Russian Universities.”
The source said he believed the handover to have been
ordered by President Boris Yeltsin.
NTV editor Stanislav Mormitko refused to confirm the
report Friday, although Interfax had reported the company’s acquisition
of Channel 4 as early as July. At the time, RTR officials also refused
to comment.
While NTV has long sought to gain full-time access to
Channel 4, the source attributed its recent success in part to NTV president
Igor Malashenko’s participation in the recent election campaign, in which
he served as an advisor on President Boris Yeltsin’s team.
“There’s no doubt that this strengthened his position,”
the source said. “But it was also a chain reaction. It was
no coincidence that he got that job because he was a widely respected man—but
then getting the job also opened a number of other doors, such as Channel
4.”
While RTR chairman Eduard Sagalayev was initially a
vehement opponent of NTV’s demands for Channel 4, he softened his position
as Malashenko gained political clout, the source said, adding that financial
pressures on his company were an additional factor. “Finally, Sagalayev
decided there was simply no point in continuing that fight,” he said.
The source said that at present only 30 percent of the
funds allocated to RTR by the federal budget actually reach the company.
He said advertisements bring in roughly the same amount, leaving the company
unable to meet about 40 percent of its financial needs.
“We simply did not have the resources to broadcast on
two channels,” he said,” adding that employees were already afraid for
their futures.” Of course it’s a painful move,” he said.
Channel 4 currently broadcasts as far as the Urals,
although NTV reaches audiences as far east as Vladivostok by satellite.
NTV will also broadcast five new satellite channels featuring
foreign and domestic films, sports, news and music, the Russian daily Segodnya
reported Friday.
The new satellite project, NTV+, will be accessible
in central Russia this fall. Initially it will be free of charge,
with subscription fees materializing at about $ 10 per month from early
1997. The company expects about 100,000 to 200,000 subscriptions.
c. A July 18 article provides an outsider’s view in Cable and
Satellite magazine.
Plans by the leading Russian independent broadcaster
NTV to launch a five-channel DBS service have moved a step closer, following
news that Pace is undertaking technical compatibility tests for the project.
The company already has a strong presence in the country
though St Petersburg-based General Satellite, and according to Rick Smith,
its group general manager, sales and marketing, Pace will appoint a general
manager resident in Moscow at the end of this month. While it is
in his view still hard to say whether Pace will eventually participate
in the service (which is to be known as NTV Plus), its raised profile in
Russia will largely be due to NTV and significant MPEG-2 cable projects
which are likely to come about in the next few years.
NTV is itself one of the great success stories of post-communist
Russian broadcasting, having received official approval from President
Boris Yeltsin in late 1993, and within two years become wholly self- supporting.
Available at the end of last year to around 102 million viewers in 168
towns and cities in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, it has gained a reputation
for strong and objective news reporting in the face of often fierce criticism.
It is nevertheless also a service desperately in need
of change, being currently forced to share a near-national frequency (Channel
4) with the Russian Universities programme. On the financial front,
however, it received a welcome boost last month when Gazprom, Russia’s
leading industrial conglomerate, reportedly acquired a 30% stake in the
channel from Most, which along with two other leading Moscow banks (Stolichny
and Natsionalny Kredit) had previously owned the station. Significantly,
Gazprom is also a shareholder in the partly-privatised Russian Public Television
(ORT).
According to Grigory Libergal, the programming director
of Internews (an international non-profit organisation which supports independent
media in the former Soviet Union), NTV has been able to hold its own in
the Russian marketplace and will be able to diversify into niche programming
once its satellite service—which will be distributed by the Gals 1 and
2 satellites and include a free-to-air news channel—becomes operational.
This will undoubtedly help it compete more effectively with Nezavisimaya
Veschatelnaya Sistema (NVS) and CTC, two other leading independent networks.
While the latter is backed by the US company Storeyfirst (which is owned
by Peter Gerwe), cooperatively- run NVS receives support from Internews
and has a potential audience of 80 million.
Libergal believes NTV Plus has a far greater chance
of becoming reality than the two-channel DBS service mooted by the Russian
State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR) late last year.
This was reported to have the backing of Kevin and Ian Maxwell (the sons
of the late media magnate Robert Maxwell) but has yet to make an appearance.
Cable and Satellite Express, July 18, 1996
3. Matt Taibbi wrote in the Moscow Times about the media strategy
of Menatep.
Independent Media, parent company of The Moscow
Times, has agreed to sell a small minority stake of its shares to the giant
Russian financial conglomerate The Menatep Group, company officials said
Monday.
An agreement in principle was signed in Amsterdam by
both parties July 23, but neither shares nor money have changed hands yet,
Independent Media CEO Derk Sauer said. The deal is expected to be
finalized in the second week of August, he said, adding that neither side
is prepared to disclose the dollar amount of the deal.
Independent Media co-founder Annemarie van Gaal said
the deal would also bring non-financial benefits to the group. “This
is a move that gives us some roots in Russia,” she said.
Since its founding in 1992, Independent Media’s fast-growing
family of publications has come to include the semi-weekly English-language
newspaper The St. Petersburg Times, the Russian-language business
weekly Kapital and Russia Review, a twice-monthly magazine. It also
publishes the Russian editions of the magazines Playboy, Cosmopolitan,
Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar and owns Skate, a financial information
and Internet publishing company.
Sauer said both sides were determined that the sale
of shares to Menatep will not affect the editorial integrity of Independent
Media’s publications. “This is one of the key issues in the deal,”
said Sauer. “Menatep has agreed not in any way to interfere in any
editorial decision.”
Analysts, however, said the deal could infringe on the
paper’s independence. “You will be on a leash,” said Yasen Zasursky,
dean of the journalism faculty at Moscow State University. “I hope
it will be a to the principle of editorial integrity. “Independent
Media is a successful company with an excellent track record. We
see a great future for Independent Media,” she said.
The Menatep Group includes Menatep Bank, Russia’s 11th
largest, and a wide range of holdings in Russian industrial companies.
It also has close ties to the Russian government.
During the controversial loans-for-shares privatization
program late last year, Menatep won a controlling slice of Yukos, Russia’s
second-largest oil company, in what most observers regarded as a rigged
auction.
Rivals have also charged that Menatep was a major beneficiary
of flaws in Russia’s system of privatization tender auctions. Rivals
alleged that Menatep had received shares in many companies but failed to
fulfill promises to make investments to the value of $ 1.1 billion.
Sauer said Menatep was a good partner. “Any large
Russian company is going to be involved in things like loans-for-shares,
and these types of transactions,” he said. “But this isn’t a reason
for us not to go forward.”
The Menatep Group’s move to buy a stake in Independent
Media is the first Russian shareholding in the company, but it marks a
continuation of a trend toward growing integration between big business
and media in Russia.
Last month Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopolist, announced
its plans to take a 30 percent stake in the NTV Independent Television
broadcaster. The other main shareholder in NTV, the MOST group, whose
main activities are in banking and real estate, also controls the Segodnya
newspaper as well as the Itogi and Syem Dnei publications.
A spokesman for the Stolichny Savings Bank said the
bank has a 5 percent stake in the ORT broadcaster, but added it has no
interests in printed media. Reports in the Russian press had earlier
linked Stolichny to the Commersant Daily newspaper.