NTV Russia
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NTV, a Russian television channel (НТВ in Cyrillic) was a pioneer in the post-Soviet independent television media. A subsidiary of Media Most holding, which was initially owned by Vladimir Gusinsky was later taken over by state-owned Gazprom causing a major controversy.
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[edit] History
Vladimir Gusinsky's company was founded in 1993 and attracted the best journalists and news anchors of the time: Tatiana Mitkova, Leonid Parfyonov, Mikhail Osokin, Yevgeniy Kiselyov, Victor Shenderovich and others. The channel set the high professional standards in Russian television, giving live coverage and sharp analysis of current events. Its political puppet show Kukly (Dolls), in the mold of Spitting Image, has become a signature of the time when the freedom of speech was virtually unlimited. NTV was reputed for its news operation and popular entertainment programmes. In the late 90s it ran prime-time news show Segodnya ("Today") with Mitkova and Osokin daily at 7 p.m and 10 p.m and weekly news commentary programme Itogi ("Summing up") with Kiselyov on Sundays at 9 p.m., both top-rated. [1]
NTV was heavy on criticism of the Russian government, especially with respect to the Chechen Wars (coming that far as showing interviews with Chechen warlords)[citation needed]. However, it favourably commented President Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996.
By 1999 NTV has achieved an audience of 102 million, covering about 70% of Russia's territory (which is very high by Russian standards), and was available in other former Soviet republics. [2].
During parliamentary elections in 1999 and presidential elections in 2000 NTV was critical of the Second Chechen War, Vladimir Putin and the political party Unity backed by him. In the puppet show Kukly in the beginning of February 2000 the puppet of Putin acted as Little Zaches in a story based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's famous Little Zaches Called Cinnober.
This provoked a fierce reaction of Putin's supporters. On February 8 the newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti published a letter signed by the Rector of St. Petersburg State University Lyudmila Verbitskaya, the Dean of its Law Department Nikolay Kropachyov and some other Putin's presidential campaign assistants that urged to prosecute the authors of the show for what they considered a criminal offence.
On May 11, 2000, tax police, backed by officers from the general prosecutor's office and the FSB, stormed the Moscow headquarters of NTV and Media Most and search the premises for 12 hours. Many critics considered this move politically motivated, as NTV had criticized Vladimir Putin heavily since his presidential electoral campaign, but Putin himself denied any involvement.
Viktor Shenderovich claimed that an unnamed top government official required NTV to exclude the puppet of Putin from kukly.[3] So in the following issue of the show, called Ten Commandments, the puppet of him was replaced with a cloud covering the top of a mountain and a burning bush.
The program Itogi went on investigating corruption in Russian government and the autumn 1999 blasts in Russia.
On June 13 2000 Gusinsky was detained as a suspect in the General Prosecutor Office's criminal investigation of fraud between his Media-Most holding, Russkoye Video - 11th Channel Ltd. and the federal enterprise Russkoye Video. At the time, Media-Most was involved in a dispute over the loan received from Gazprom. On the third day, however, he was released under the written undertaking not to leave the country.[4]
On July 15 the puppet of Putin acted in the Kukly show as Girolamo Savonarola.
On July 19 investigators of the office of Prosecutor General of Russia came to Gusinsky's home, distrained and arrested his property.
In a surprisingly informal deal, the charges against Gusinsky was lifted after he had signed an agreement with Mikhail Lesin, Minister of Media, on July 20. Under the agreement, Gusinsky for his debts was to sell Media-Most to Gazprom, which had 30% share of NTV since 1996, for the price imposed by the latter, guaranteed that he would not be prosecuted. After leaving the country, Gusinsky claimed he was pressured to sign the agreement by the prospect of the criminal investigation. Media-Most refused to comply with the agreement.
Tax authorities brought a suit against Media Most aiming to wind it up.
On January 26, 2001, Gazprom announced that it had acquired a controlling stake of 46% in NTV. The voting rights of a 19% stake held by Media Most was frozen by a court decision.[5]
On January 29 Putin agreed to meet with leading NTV journalists, but the meeting turned out to be of no evident consequences, as the parts reasserted their positions, Putin denying any involvment and claiming that he was not to interfere.
Around that time Ted Turner, a famous American media mogul, appeared to be going to buy Gusinsky's share, but this has never happened.
On April 3 Gazprom Media headed by Alfred Kokh by violating the procedure conducted a shareholders' meeting which put Kiselyov down from the NTV Director General position.
On April 14, 2001 Gazprom took over NTV by force and brought in its own management team. Its director-general Yevgeniy Kiselyov was replaced by Boris Jordan. Many leading journalists, including Yevgeniy Kiselyov, Svetlana Sorokina, Viktor Shenderovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Dmitry Dibrov, left the company. Leonid Parfyonov and Tatyana Mitkova remained. Kiselyov's Itogi program was closed down, replaced by Parfyonov's Namedni.
Citizens concerned by the threat to the freedom of speech in Russia argued that the financial pressure was inspired by the Vladimir Putin's government which was often subject to NTV's criticism. Some tens of thousands of Russians rallied to the call of dissident NTV journalists in order to support the old NTV staff in April 2001. Within the next couple years two independent TV channels which absorbed the former NTV journalists, TV-6 and TVS, were shut down.
In January 2003 Boris Jordan was in turn replaced by Nikolay Senkevich, a son of the famous TV-presenter Yuri Senkevich from Channel One, as Director General [6]. Few days earlier he was also discharged from Media Most Director General position, where he had replaced Alfred Kokh in October 2001. As insiders claimed, Jordan was sacked because NTV had carried a live translation of the culmination of the Moscow theater siege in October 2002 and had been too critical of the way authorities handled it.
Since then entertaining talk-shows have become more prominent compared to political programmes on NTV. However, unlike other leading TV channels in Russia, NTV went on reporting on-the-fly about some opposition's activities and government's failures, including the conflagrating fire of the Moscow Manege on the day of Russian presidential elections on March 14, 2004, and the assassination of the pro-Russian President of Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov on the Victory day May 9, 2004.
On June 1, 2004, Leonid Parfyonov, one of the last leading journalists of the old NTV staff, who was still critical of the government, was ousted from the channel, and his weekly news commentary programme Namedni was closed down.[7][8] Its last announced issue hasn't appeared on air. Shortly before this he was forbidden to present an interview with Malika Yandarbieva, widow of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Chechen rebel leader in exile assassinated in Qatar earlier that year, and publicized this decision on May 31: [9]
On July 5, 2004, Senkevich was replaced with Vladimir Kulistikov (b. 1952) as Director General of NTV. [10] Tamara Gavrilova, fellow student of Vladimir Putin at Leningrad State University, was appointed Deputy Director general. [11]
Soon the political programmes Speech Freedom hosted by Savik Shuster, Personal Contribution hosted by Alexander Gerasimov and Red Arrow were closed down.
As of 2006, NTV runs weekly news commentary programme Sunday Night in a talk-show format and political talk-show On The Stand, both hosted by Vladimir Solovyov, as well as weekly news commentary programme Real Politics hosted on Saturdays by a political analyst and key Kremlin adviser Gleb Pavlovsky since 2005.
The famous "NTV" logo as well as the iconic green sphere was designed by Simon Levin, the legendary Russian designer, and became a symbol for the new graphic language of television design in Russia.
[edit] References and notes
[edit] See also
- NTV Plus
- History of post-Soviet Russia
- Vladimir Gusinsky
- Gazprom
- Gazprom Media
- NTV Canada
- List of Russian-language television channels
[edit] External links
- Official Site
- NTV America
- NTV fact file, 1993-2000
- Timeline of events, 1993-April 2001
- Analysis: Russian media troubles. BBC News, 14.04.01
- in quotes: NTV takeover. BBC News, 15.04.01
- History of the defeat as seen by the journalists and viewers, in Russian. Computer translation.
- Chamber judgment in the case of Gusinskiy v. Russia, European Court of Human Rights, May 19, 2004.
- The Kremlin Digger's Tales by Yelena Tregubova, in Russian. Computer translation.
- "NTV was here, part 1". Computer translation.
- "The Kukliad". Computer translation.
- "NTV, TV-6, TVS were here". Computer translation.
- JumpTV: Official internet broadcast of NTV MIR www.jumptv.com
- Tirmaste, Maria Luisa, "It was a request we couldn't refuse". Kommersant, 31.05.2004
- Pribylovsky, Vladimir & Yuriy Felshtinsky, The Operation "Successor". in Russian
- Bossart, Alla, The Buratino Defence. Novaya Gazeta, 12.04.2001, No 26. in Russian
- Kurasova, Elena, The TV-duke Kara-Murza. Stringer 1.05.2003, No 7. in Russian
- To whom NTV has been sold: FSB is taking over NTV by Yevgenia Albats, Novaya Gazeta 2.10.2002, No 72. (in Russian)
- Latynina, Yuliya, "I will be your censor myself". Novaya Gazeta 20.01.2003, No 4. in Russian
- The place of Parfyonov; Instead of Parfyonov. Izvestia, 5.06.2004 in Russian
- Ryklin, Alexander. As the stars are extinguished, someone needs it. EJ 123, 8.06.2004 in Russian
- Ryklin, Alexander. Transgressor of ethical norms. EJ 123, 8.06.2004 in Russian
