Moscow's Media Message

Wednesday, 16 Jan. 2002
In the bad old days, the Soviet Union had four national TV channels, all run by the state. As a popular joke had it at the time: On Channel 1, you see Brezhnev reading his speech. On channel 2, you see Brezhnev reading his speech. On channel 3, you see Brezhnev reading his speech. On channel 4, you see a KGB colonel waving his finger at you, saying "Stop this channel surfing — or else!"

This joke came to mind last Friday when the Supreme Arbitration Court ruled that TV-6 — the only national channel in Russia still independent of the Kremlin — be liquidated. The TV-6 legal ordeal started last May when Lukoil-Garant, a pension fund owned by oil giant Lukoil, demanded that the channel be liquidated because its debts exceeded its assets. Lukoil-Garant filed its suit as a minority shareholder, holding a 15% stake in TV-6. But it is no secret that Lukoil depends on the goodwill of the Kremlin. And the Kremlin badly wants control of TV-6.

Once an obscure entertainment channel, TV-6 promptly acquired national prominence and financial growth when it was staffed last April by a group of journalists from NTV, another private national television channel taken over by another state-dependent business giant — this time Gazprom. But the state did not use Gazprom to crush NTV and its owner, oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, only to see the journalists find refuge at TV-6, run by oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

Berezovsky was instrumental in creating the robber capitalism of the Yeltsin era and he also helped Vladimir Putin get elected president. Putin and Berezovsky fell out, however. Berezovsky was stripped of his most valuable assets, including another national channel, ORT-Russian Public Television, and emigrated. Neither Gusinsky nor Berezovsky are white knights. Both used their media to pursue private political and business ends. But their TV channels were professional, exciting, popular — and independent of the state. Most Russians cannot afford the print media anymore; nor do they get their information from the Web: only 1.5% have an Internet connection. The four national TV channels have emerged as the primary source of information.

With prices going up and incomes coming down, people are beginning to grumble. Putin's approval rating, though still very high, slipped from 80% last November to 72% last month. The typical Kremlin response has been to tighten controls. The Supreme Arbitration Court liquidated TV-6 despite a new law banning minority shareholders from bringing bankruptcy proceedings against a company. "Any talk of the judicial system's independence will not be possible now without an ironic smile," commented Boris Nemtsov, Vice-Chairman of the State Duma.

Under Russian law, TV-6 could exist for another six months but Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin said he would withdraw the company's broadcasting license as soon as the liquidation process started. Lesin hinted that the TV-6 journalist team could win a new license — as long as they parted ways with Berezovsky. The journalists sent Lesin a letter in which they said they would give up the channel's broadcasting license so they could form a new company to bid for the licence again in the spring.

Meanwhile, a new joke has sprung up: "Will swap two TV sets for one radio that receives foreign stations."