RUSSIA
I. Establishment of TV-Centre.
On June 9 a new television channel, TV-Centre, was
launched in Moscow. Largely financed by the Moscow city authorities, TV-Centre
broadcasts on Channel 3, formerly occupied jointly by Moscow TV and the
commercial 2x2 television station. It will share Channel 3 with another
station, Moskovia TV, owned by the Moscow regional authorities, which has
been granted the right to broadcast for three hours a day.
After plans to launch TV-Centre were announced in
January, it soon became known among media observers in Russia as “Luzhkov’s
television”—a reference to the political ambitions of Moscow Mayor Yuriy
Luzhkov, who is expected to use the new station to build a base of support
to contest the next presidential elections in Russia, due in 2000. With
electoral considerations in mind, Moscow city officials involved in TV-Centre
have said that one of the aims of the new channel should be “to separate
the image of Moscow from that of the Kremlin and the federal authorities,”
who are associated with corruption and inefficiency, according to political
observers in Russia.
Luzhkov himself seems to view the new channel as
a way of converting his strong local support into a national presence.
In an interview for TV-Centre on its launch day, he said it should be “objective
and dependent on no one,” adding: “I think that there is another
wish that should be fulfilled: that this channel will be watched by Russians—not
just Muscovites, but Russians. If that happens it will carry weight. It
will be interesting and useful for our state.”
Although TV-Centre is broadcasting initially only
to the Moscow area, it plans to extend its service nationwide using the
latest digital technology, and has reportedly already signed agreements
to be relayed in 19 other Russian cities. According to a spokesman, the
multimillion-dollar venture aspires to become a fully-fledged network by
the end of the year, comprising terrestrial, cable and two satellite channels
and reaching 40 per cent of the Russian population.
Currently the television networks broadcasting nationwide
in Russia comprise Russian TV and Radio (RTR), which is wholly state-owned;
Russian Public TV (ORT); which is 51 per cent state-owned, with the balance
held by a mix of private and public corporations; and the commercial network
NTV (Independent Television), controlled by the Most financial group. There
is also St Petersburg TV (Channel 5), with a potential audience of 90m
viewers in European Russia and the Ural Mountains.
The Moscow city authorities already own a 67 per
cent stake in TV-Centre, and the remaining third is expected to be sold
soon to private investors, including foreign citizens.
A survey of the TV industry in Russia published
in May on Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty’s web site posed the question of why major financial and industrial
groups in Russia have competed so fiercely to buy media outlets during
the last few years, and particularly since the 1996 presidential elections.
This was one of their conclusions: “Media magnates often say they are not
looking for immediate financial gains, since few Russian broadcasting stations
and newspapers are profitable. Rather, they value media branches as conduits
for self-promotion and political influence.”
The founders of TV-Centre, among them Anatoliy Lysenko,
who heads the Moscow city committee on telecommunications and the mass
media, agree that the station’s role is primarily political.
The ‘Financial Times,’ which quoted Lysenko as saying
that “for the political and economic interests of Moscow, the existence
of such a channel is vitally necessary,” called the launch of the new channel
“a reflection of how highly politicized Russian television has become,
and the extent to which each channel has become the property of a particular
politician or political grouping.”
BBC World Broadcast Analysis, June 13, 1997
II. Luzhkov TV Aggravates Media Bias.
The launch of Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s new television
station may improve light entertainment for Russian viewers, but it will
also aggravate the problem of political bias in Russian broadcasting.
Luzhkov has poured millions of dollars into Center
TV, the city government-owned station that has just taken over Channel
3.
This support, $ 6 million for programming alone,
will certainly help raise the standard of programming on a band of the
airwaves previously occupied by two lackluster stations: the patchy and
superficial commercial channel 2x2 and the low-budget local MTK.
Moscow taxpayers may ask why the city government
needs to become involved in the business of broadcasting, which in most
societies is best left to private enterprise.
But Luzhkov has long styled himself as a competent
manager who can do much more than just administer basic city services.
As with the ZiL and Moskvich automobile plants that the city also recently
took under its wing, Luzhkov believes he is well qualified to operate a
successful television channel.
The truly worrying aspect of the Center TV adventure
is its political subtext. Center TV is more than just another of Luzhkov’s
high-profile show projects for his can-do entrepreneurial talents.
Luzhkov may publicly deny that he will be a presidential
candidate in 2000, but no one believes him. The new television channel
is an obvious attempt to guarantee access to the airwaves during the campaign.
Anatoly Lysenko, the man Luzhkov has handpicked to run Center TV, makes
no secret that he will use the channel to support Luzhkov when the campaign
begins.
But one thing Russia does not need is another politically
biased television station. While the media are supposed to be the fourth
estate, reporting the news without fear or favor, Moscow-owned Center TV
will just add another twisted prism to a system of Russian television that
is already being distorted by excessive political influence.
The rot set in during last year’s presidential elections,
when all the national television channels, from the private NTV to the
state-controlled ORT and RTR, shamelessly skewed their coverage to support
President Boris Yeltsin.
Since then, the channels have continued to toady
to the faction in power in the Kremlin: NTV’s agenda seems increasingly
dictated by Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, and the State Duma has
justifiably complained that television coverage of its proceedings has
been trivial and defamatory.
Given this stranglehold held on the other television
stations by his rivals, it is perhaps understandable that Luzhkov is seeking
an outlet for his own views. But that will not help the cause of a free
and fair press.
The Moscow Times, June 11, 1997
III. Nationalist Gains Air Time in Television Coup.
By Andrei Zolotov
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov in June claimed most of
Channel 3 television for his slick new mouthpiece, Center TV, but there
was one fly in the ointment: hardline nationalist Alexander Krutov.
With the backing of the Moscow regional government,
Krutov and his Moskovia television company were able to resist Luzhkov’s
bid for a full channel and claim two hours of air time for themselves.
The result is an odd mix. Squeezed in between Luzhkov’s
new packaged blend of infotainment and fast-paced news that competes with
the other national channels, Krutov’s two hours of programming offer a
much slower pace.
In brief snatches scattered through the day, viewers
get a diet of provincial news, pastoral landscapes, folk songs, gardening
advice and local weather reports, intertwined with strong patriotic rhetoric
and Orthodox symbols.
“I believe that television should have a national-state
orientation,” said Krutov, sitting in his office at the Ostankino television
center in northeastern Moscow surrounded by Orthodox icons, Easter eggs
and a picture of Patriarch Alexy II.
Some say the strange co-existence of Center TV and
Moskovia on the same channel is the result of political intrigue. Luzhkov
had wanted his new station to take over the three weak broadcasters that
had formerly occupied Channel 3. He shifted two of them, MTK and 2x2, but
could not move Moskovia.
Anatoly Lysenko, chief of Center TV, blamed Luzhkov’s
arch rival, First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais for forcing Center
TV to share a “communal apartment” on Channel 3 with Moskovia.
But Krutov denied any conspiracy against Luzhkov
and said the Kremlin had to accede to the Moscow regional government’s
demand that it should also have its own television, just like every other
region of the Russian Federation.
In fact, Moskovia expanded its air time from one
hour to two, and no one can explain why Moskovia’s two hours were not given
in one block, but divided into three short portions during the day.
Krutov concedes that the professional level of Moscow
regional television could be improved. But the Moscow region has promised
investments that will lift Moskovia’s budget to 2 billion rubles ($ 350,000)
a month and allow the station’s staff to grow from 40 to 90 people.
With this money, Krutov will fight his battle to
save the Russian people, who he says are “dying out,” not because of the
drop in the standard of living, but from the adverse spiritual effect of
the alien lifestyle imposed on them by the Westernizing reformers in recent
years.
“They want to change our spiritual mold and mentality.
It could be good—this Protestant, Western mentality, where the private
is above the social and where achieving material wealth becomes an absolute
goal. But Russians are resisting it,” said Krutov.
Krutov’s own show “Russky Dom,” which has been running
on Channel 3 for more than three years, draws its audience from Russian
religious nationalists who are usually bitterly critical of the “devil’s
box.”
In a recent program, Krutov described credit cards
and fingerprint-activated security systems as apocalyptic “signs of Satan.”
His programs are filled with tirades against the corrupt West’s conspiracy
against holy Russia and with calls for a strong paternalistic state. This
week’s show had two major themes: the dangers of sex education in public
schools and a discussion of who should be heir to the Russian throne.
“This program emanates darkness and obscurantism,”
said Irina Petrovskaya, a liberal television critic with the Izvestia daily,
who thinks that Krutov’s programming encourages national and religious
intolerance.
Krutov became known to the wider public in Russia
when he became commentator for the official “Vremya” news program in 1983,
and one of the leading reporters and commentators on the glasnost-era show
“Prozhektor Perestroiki” (Perestroika’s Spotlight), which pioneered critical
television journalism and investigative reporting on Channel 1. He also
served as a people’s deputy of the U.S.S.R.
He said that he was the first Soviet television
journalist to go to Chernobyl after the nuclear catastrophe there, and
what he saw there profoundly affected his attitude to God. But like many
recent converts to the Orthodox Church, he followed in the powerful nationalist
wing of the church.
Krutov denies accusations of chauvinism. He said
Russians are defined not by blood, but by sharing a state ideology and
national mentality. “I think that human rights can only be observed in
a strong state,” he said, citing the examples of the Roman Empire and the
United States.
The Moscow Times, June 27, 1997
IV. Channel Three: Moscow’s New Viewing Option.
By Yuri Bogomolov
It’s quite clear that a certain politician will benefit
when his city channel obtains the status of a federal channel. But will
Russian viewers benefit? We tried to get answers to this and other questions
in a recent discussion with the general manager of TV-Center, Boris Vishnyak.
B.V.: “On June 9, we will begin broadcasting
in Moscow, the Moscow Oblast and several other regions.
“We have signed a number of contracts with the Intersputnik
company, and are about to sign a contract on the rental of an Intersalt
satellite, which will cover part of Russia and part of Western Europe.“
MN: “Will viewers be able to receive the new
Moscow channel right off, or will some kind of special equipment be required?”
B.V.: “They will need nothing of the kind.
We will simply rebroadcast. In some cases we will use the city’s cable,
but only where they exist, of course.”
MN: “But broadcasting in this way depends on
the good will of local television broadcasters. Aren’t two public channels
enough for them. Do you think they will just let another ‘guest from Moscow’
move in?”
B.V.: “We are working on this matter. We are
trying to make agreements on broadcasting and joint production. In actuality,
we intend to broadcast a program in the outer regions that will differ
from the one Muscovites see.
MN: “You mentioned contracts with local television
companies in outer regions. According to the contracts, who will pay whom?”
B.V.: “There is no universal rule here. In
each specific case the financial terms are regulated differently. I am
certain that there will be cases in which not only we will pay, but they
will pay us.”
MN: “You are not really a broadcasting company,
are you?”
BV.: “No, we will mostly deal with our own
production.”
MN: “Then I’ve got a question: Where does the
money come from?”
B.V. “We are a stock-holding company, the founder
of which is the Moscow city government. The city government has the controlling
stake in the company. Of course, we hope to obtain some means from commercial
activity. In the conditions of our company’s founding (it was created by
an order of the mayor), there is an item on attracting investors through
open competition.”
MN: “That competition is yet to be declared,
right?”
B.V.: “No, but we haven’t even started working
yet. We do know, however, that there are many out there who would like
to participate . . . . But first we need to prove ourselves on the air,
show our product... Our founder finances us today on certain conditions.
MN: “What might those be?”
B.V.: “On the condition of return.”
MN: “The two television companies you will replace have certain debts:
financial ones to their investors and sponsors, and moral debts to their
viewers. Do you inherit these?”
B.V.: “Yes and no. In a strictly legal sense,
we are not the successor of these companies, and in that case do not owe
anyone anything. On the other hand, we don’t feel we have a right to break
of the television series that have been shown on our channel for an extended
period of time.”
MN: “What do you propose doing with the advertising
‘operas’?”
B.V.: “A decision has been made by a committee
of the company’s directors to conduct an open tender to attract advertising
agencies. For now, so as not to break off anything and earn at least some
money, those advertising agencies that worked with the channel will continue
to present their advertisements on the basis of a temporary agreement.”
MN: “There’s been a great deal of gossip about
how you’re going to deal with the personnel of MTK and 2x2. What is actually
happening?”
B.V.: “We have already hired 70 percent of our permanent staff. We
invited almost the entire technical staff of the two former companies to
work for us. As far as creative personnel goes, we have already taken in
all of 2x2 information service, and all the dictators.”
MN: “How will the broadcasting network be organized?”
B.V.: “First of all, we decided to maintain
2x2’s news regime, and there will be in-depth news programs with analytical
elements every two hours. We are also planning to show a good number of
films. In the daytime there will be soap operas, and in the evening—we
will try our best—there will be as many Russian films as our finances permit.
On June 9 we will begin with the premiere of Eduard Ryazanov’s latest film
“Hello, Silly Fools!” There are programs on Moscow, on art... Children’s
programs will be shown mostly during the day and on the weekend.
MN: “Before starting you probably analyzed
the unfortunate experience of both the Moscow and St. Petersburg channels.
What were the reasons behind their failure?”
B.V.: “The greatest vice of the Moscow channel
is that three television companies were working for it at the same time.
The fragmentation of the network did not allow the channel to create a
unified concept. The second defect (and this has to do with MTK) is that
air time was sold to a number of different sub-departments, each of which
had commercial dealings.
MN: “Any channel that has any respect for itself
will try to determine its image. NTV is news-orientated, TV-6 is for the
young, RTR is for the people. What is TV-Center?”
B.V.: “If we are able, we want to make a kind
channel.”
MN: “In what sense?”
B.V.: If you look, there is too much negativeness
on the air today. People are tired of that. We will try to make the positive
more prevalent on our channel than it is on others. I hope that this will
be the Moscow channel’s main differentiating factor. Other than that, we
aren’t out to invent anything new. We want to use new computer technology
as much as possible. . . .”
MN: “Some have said that you are destroying
the price structure on the film market with your activeness.”
B.V.: “How so?”
MN: “You are pushing the prices up.”
B.V.: “That isn’t true. There have been certain
cases in which we planned to spend more than our competitors. How else
are we to buy a film that interests us?
MN: “This was the case with ‘Indiana’ and ‘The
English Patient?’”
B.V.: “That is a commercial secret. We are
in a different position—we are new channel, and need to attract viewers...
And we are beginning at a bad time—early summer.”
MN: “In order to attract viewers, do you intend
to win over to your side some stars from other channels?”
B.V.: “Our situation is just like the one before
a soccer championship. The migration of doctors, masseuses and lawn mowers
is considerable, but of those who actually go out on the field and play—there
is no sign of them.
Moscow News, June 5, 1997
V. Yeltsin “declares war for the Russian tongue,” seeks National Cultural Channel.
By Artyon Protasenko
Russian President Boris Yeltsin called for “declaring
war for theRussian language” in mid-June.
The Russian head of state was addressing the June
10th meeting of the Council forculture and art in St. Petersburg. Boris
Yeltsin called for setting up a special commission to help, if not bring
“the present-day Russian language close to that of Pushkin, at least purify
it.”
The President declared that he felt indignant at
seeing “entire Moscow flooded with advertisements in foreign languages”
and added that a ban would probably be imposed on the use of any other
language but Russian in advertisements.
“It is our holy duty to preserve the purity of the
Russian language,” the President said.
The head of state reiterated his initiative for
making Channel 5 of national television specify in programmes fully devoted
to culture. According to the Russian President, this TV channel should
be fully given to “culture only, interesting and varied cultural programmes,
without any advertising.”
According to the President, it is necessary to set
up a special committee to provide guidance to Channel 5 and ask Academician
Dmitry Likhachev to oversee the channel.
The President then spoke about the need for bringing
up a cultured younger generation. “It is necessary to restore schools headed
by leading masters,” Yeltsin stressed. According to him, there are many
gifted people among the present-day younger generation, but “they lack
culture that existed earlier.”
The head of state criticised the level of culture
in the army. He said there was not “even a whiff of culture” in the army
and it was necessary for the minister of defence to pay more attention
to cultural education of the servicemen.
Tass, June 7, 1997
VI. Controlling TV coverage of Duma proceedings.
The colourful history of the fraught and dramatic
relations between the deputies of the State Duma and television may soon
reach a finale that favours the people’s elected representatives. The deputies’
complaint has always been the same: parliament is wrongly presented. The
State Duma’s committee for information policy has drafted, and has submitted
for approval in the Duma, a document entitled “On the rules for televised
relays and video recordings of sittings.”
[Reporter Ye. Pogorelova] If the rules are
approved by the deputies, only the parliamentary press service will film
the throes of lawmaking. But even for its own cameramen, the authors of
the rules have set out most meticulously what the TV image of the people’s
elected representatives should be. All their complaints have been taken
into account, even though they were widely known before.
[Video shows Nikolay Svanidze, chairman of the All-Russia State TV
and Broadcasting Company, VGTRK, addressing the Duma on 5th March 1997].
[Svanidze]—recording starts in mid-sentence—and he says: Nikolay Karlovich,
in your “Vesti” programme, deputy so-and-so was picking his nose. My answer
is: Excuse me, but he wasn’t picking his nose in our studio; he was picking
his nose in his own seat [i.e. in parliament].
[Pogorelova] Well, the rules are clear in such
a situation: it is forbidden to show any unethical actions or gestures
by the deputies. The text goes on to say that any disorder in the chamber,
the government gallery or the visitors’gallery will in no circumstances
feature in any TV broadcast. In such a case, the document says, the cameraman
should focus on the chairman of the session until order is restored to
the chamber.
Nor is it recommended to show a panning shot of
the chamber if not many deputies are present at the sitting. Deputies are
not to be filmed entering or leaving the chamber.
There is a lot more of what is not allowed or not
recommended that is certainly not in keeping with the law “On The Mass
Media.” But the legislators can easily remedy that.
Above all, the new rules infringe the right of the
voters, since they will not be able to obtain truthful information about
the work of those they have elected. That is the view of the chairman of
the Foundation for the Protection of Glasnost.
Aleksey Simonov, chairman of the Foundation for
the Protection of Glasnost: Those who also want to adjust what their parliamentary
TV service films will certainly be found among the deputies. In other words,
we shall have pictures that have been doctored twice over, featuring bright
and well-spoken angels. All the media, not only the TV channels, must categorically
unite and try to at least hinder the Duma’s adoption of such a law on the
rules of conduct for the mirror before the face of its owner.
[Video shows various scenes of parliamentary boredom,
unruliness (especially involving Vladimir Zhirinovskiy), deputies laughing,
chatting or fighting—as well as others who appear to be taking the task
seriously; poster featuring a tortoise with the caption “Glasnost is a
tortoise crawling towards freedom of speech”].
Russia TV channel, Moscow, June 10, 1997
I. Russain “exodus” warning after TV relays cut.
The main organization representing Russians in
Kyrgyzstan has warned of an “exodus” of Russians from the country if broadcasts
of Moscow-based TV and radio stations are cut any further. In an appeal
to President Askar Akayev on 17th May, published in ‘Slovo Kyrgyzstana’newspaper
on 3rd June, the Soglasiye (Accord) movement said the reduction in airtime
for the Mayak Radio station and Russian Public Television (ORT), and threats
to halt Russian TV and Radio (RTR) and ORT broadcasts completely, “cause
us serious alarm.” Following is the text of the appeal, as published in
‘Slovo Kyrgyzstana’:
Hunger for information is more dangerous than natural
hunger. An appeal by the “Soglasiye” [Accord] republic-level association
to the president of the Kyrgyz Republic:
Dear Askar Akayevich [Akayev]!
The ethnic Russians of the Kyrgyz Republic praise
your contribution and your constant efforts to preserving civil peace and
interethnic accord. The open and successful functioning of the Kyrgyz-Russian
(Slavonic) University and its firm position in increasing the status of
Russian language, stabilizing the migration processes, signing agreements
on the status of citizens of Russia who live permanently in the Kyrgyz
Republic with the Russian Federation, and many others allow us to be more
confident and see our future more optimistically.
However, the steady reduction of the information
sector which is held in common with Russia—the reduction of broadcasts
by the Mayak Radio station and ORT [Russian Public Television] from their
full output, the threat to cut off RTR [Russian TV and Radio] and ORT completely—causes
us serious alarm.
A public opinion poll among compatriots and reports
from localities, particularly from the south of the republic, where television
and radio broadcasting companies of the neighbouring republics are heard,
convince us of that hunger for information is more dangerous than natural
hunger. Lately intentions to emigrate have increased again. An exodus will
flow over us if the question of the preservation of broadcasts by Russian
television and radio channels is not resolved in the nearest future.
The “Soglasiye” republic-level association, which
unites ethnic Russians’social organizations in Osh, Dzhalal-Abad, Talas,
Issyk-Kul and Chuy Regions, asks you earnestly in the light of a forthcoming
visit to be made by the head of the Russian government to our republic
to resolve the question of the preservation of the united information sector.
World Broadcast Information, Editorial Analysis, June 13, 1997
I. Parliament adopts law on national TV and radio council.
The Ukrainian Supreme Council [parliament] has adopted
the law “On the National Council for TV and Radio Broadcasting” (with 248
votes in favour out of the 284 deputies present in the chamber). The chairman
of the Supreme Council Committee for Legislative Safeguards of Freedom
of Speech and Mass Media, Viktor Ponedilko, told the session on June 13
that under the law, the council should have eight members who are appointed
for a period of four years—half by the president and the other half by
parliament.
Members of the council take part in elections to
all posts by secret ballot.
The law regulates the activity of the national council’s
branches in the regions. It defines precisely the procedure for issuing
broadcasting licences and organizing competitions and outlines the procedure
for calculating tariffs and setting standards, as defined by the council.
The law sets out the council’s monitoring and supervisory functions, as
well as its annual report to parliament. It also provides for the imposition
of penalties against TV and radio companies for breaches of legislation.
Their broadcasting licences may be withdrawn only by a court decision.
The funding of the council should be reflected by a separate entry in the
budget.
UNIAN news agency, June 13, 1997