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REVIEW
OF RUSSIAN MEDIA
Russian-language
Internet market grows in 1998.
The value of
services provided in the Russian-language section of the
Internet in 1998 totalled 161.5m dollars, Prime-TASS was
told by the press service of the Russian Public Centre
for Internet Technologies [RPCIT], which has carried out
the first comprehensive analysis in Russia of the
Russian-speaking Internet. Internet access services
worth approximately 150m dollars were provided in 1998
(the 1997 figure was 50m dollars).
Russia has more
than 300 Internet providers engaged in Internet access
services, while no less than 30 per cent of the providers
have the necessary licences from the State Committee of
the Russian Federation on Communications and
Information. About 250,000 people are currently
connected to the Internet via these providers and up to
10,000 dedicated corporate access channels are
operational. At the same time, many Russian
citizens use the free postal services which are, more
often than not, provided from the USA.
The value of
commercial services involved in building the
Russian-speaking Internet is estimated to have been 6m
dollars in 1998. More than 26,000 independent
Internet data resources (web sites, theme pages and
servers) have been set up in Russia, which is an increase
of more than 200 per cent during the year. The
Russian network includes at least 500,000 megabytes of
information in Russian.
The commercial
provision of access to data resources via the Internet
was about 5m dollars worth of business in 1998. The
growth of this type of service is held back by the
relatively small number of Internet users in Russia.
The RPCIT experts
estimate the development and use of advertising material
in the Internet to have been worth 500,000 dollars in
1998. The main aim of the Internet advertising was
to increase the number of visits to a specific resource
(web site).
The expert
assessments collected by RPCIT indicate that about
250,000 people are currently entitled to access the
Internet in Russia as private users (in the sense of
being connected officially via the providers).
Around 500,000 citizens have access to the Internet from
corporate networks. More than 600,000 occasionally
or regularly work with the Internet via educational and
academic networks.
ITAR-TASS news agency
(World Service), Moscow, January 6, 1999
Russia grants 620
broadcasting licences in 1998.
The year 1998
beat all the records in the number of licences granted
for TV and radio broadcasting in Russia. Head of
the Russian Federal Service for TV and Radio Broadcasting
(FSTR) Mikhail Seslavinskiy on [21st December] told a
press conference that the number of licences issued this
year had reached 620.
Seslavinskiy’s
forecast was that the process would not slow down.
Despite the fact that the economic crisis had
considerably affected the electronic media, “there
was no outflow of the prospective licensees,”
particularly in the regions.
To make the
licence trade possibly open and public, the FSTR together
with heads of the federal TV companies and leaders of the
National Association of Regional TV Companies had worked
out a draft government decision on state regulation in
the sphere of electronic media, Seslavinskiy said.
The document provides for competitions to be held for
vacant frequency contenders. A nine-member
professional commission is supposed to choose a winner.
The head of the
FSTR said the main result of the five-year work of the
service was “the creation of [an] electronic media
system” in Russia. He pointed out that back in
the beginning of the 1990s the Russian television viewers
could only watch two channels. Now there were no
less than eight to ten TV channels available in each
region. From 1992, a total of 1,987 licences has
been granted, 1,138 of them for TV and 851 for radio
broadcasting [figures as received]. At the same
time, the state-run television makes no more than 10 per
cent of the total number of broadcasting companies.
Another important
function of the FSTR is to exercise control over
unconditional observance of the legislation. In
1997 only, 30 licences were revoked for gross violations
in this sphere and 50 companies were given
warnings. In 1998, the statistics were practically
the same. Seslavinskiy noted with satisfaction that
the period of “wild piracy on TV has become a thing
of the past.”
The head of the
FSTR said that the coming year would be rather difficult
for the Russian electronic media as it would be the year
of the parliamentary election. During the election
campaign, the FSTR will monitor the political advertising
on TV and exercize control over the observance of
election legislation.
ITAR-TASS news agency
(World Service), Moscow, December 21, 1998
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