The first channel - public Russian TV channel (ORT) is the biggest TV channel in the country with total distribution of 98 % of the Russian territory or 140 million viewers. TV Channel Russia is the second national channel with total distribution of 98.5 % of the territory and 50 million viewers. ORT is the largest national joint stock TV Company with 51% of the shares controlled by the Russian state. The second national channel – Russia – is completely state-run. NTV is the only private Russian TV channel with the status of a national channel. It covers approximately 95% of the country’s territory and has an audience of 110 million viewers, and competes in popularity only with ORT. In 1996 NTV received its status as a national channel after Boris Yeltsen’s re-election and was seen by many as the price the president paid the NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky for his support during the election campaign.
There are also 2,378 radio stations officially registered in the country. Music radio stations have a great popularity in Russia. The leading news and analysis radio stations include Radio Mayak, Radio of Russia and Echo of Moscow, the influential private station.
The Internet media has also developed rapidly in the last few years. Evidently, Russia lags behind the developed countries in certain Internet factors and mainly in the accessibility of the Internet for the Russian population. According to NUA statistics there are currently 12.1 million Internet users in Russia, and this increase every year. (). There are 868 online periodical outlets officially registered in the country. Russia is also one of the few countries in the world where the new form of journalism - online journalism - and the new type of media - online only news organisations - have received serious attention and development in the last 4-5 years. The appearance of such outlets, and their fast evolution became possible due to high costs of print media production and distribution as well as the big numbers of young people with technical and journalistic education, very often without clear prospects of jobs. Polit.ru, a news and politics Internet portal is one of the oldest Russian newsites on the Internet (founded in 1996). By the year 1999, Russia already had several prominent online publications: gazeta.ru, lenta.ru, vesti.ru, and utro.ru ().
More Russians got acquainted with the internet as a news and information medium in the summer of 2000 during the disaster aboard the Russian submarine Kursk, and the Ostankino TV tower fire, which paralysed broadcasting of the leading national channels. Another example of a popular Internet portal is strana.ru – a national information system that includes a main portal and regional websites in each of Russia’s federal districts. All leading national channels are broadcast on this site in real-time. Strana.ru has also developed several special projects, and although is officially an independent Internet site, it works very closely with the state media, mainly with the state television, and very often is seen as an Internet mouthpiece for the Russian authorities.
Regional television is extremely diverse. There are major regional market leaders that actively compete for viewers with the national channels, and there are also network partners, regional and city stations set up by local authorities and state broadcasting companies.
Post-Soviet media has gone through three periods of developments: “Freedom without responsibility (1991-1993), media empires and media sponsorship (1994-1998), and responsibility without freedom (1999-present). (McCormack, G., 2002, Patterns of media control in post-Soviet elections, Russia and Eurasia review, vol.1, issue 10). The period of 1989 to 1993 is considered to be the golden age in terms of freedom of expression until a censorship was reintroduced in October 1993 by Yeltsen’s government.
It has been revealed that the privatisation of the media has not necessarily left the state out of ownership. The creation of a new class of individuals with political ambitions and economic influence came about in the selective privatisation of industry, and oligarchs such as Gusinsky and Berezovsky came on the scene. In the mid 90s, the Russian presidential administration courted the most influential private network, Vladimir Gusinsky’s NTV with the reduced state rates for frequency hire and a 24 hour licence. Oligarchs were also persuaded to support Boris Yeltsen’s presidential campaign in 1996.
In later years concerns about Putin’s attitude to freedom of speech were reinforced when independent TV broadcasters critical of the Kremlin were forced off the air in the first two years of his presidency. Not everyone was convinced by the president’s insistence that this was business, not politics. Two court cases were brought against Berezovsky and Gusinsky. The Kremlin took control of NTV in 2001 and ordered the closure of TV-6 in January 2002, acting through the industrial groups Gazprom and Lukoil. TV-6 was replaced by TVS, which continued to be as Russia’s only private-owned national network until the authorities pulled the plug in June 2003, officially for financial reasons. Prominent politicians and newspapers said the closure of TVS was a blow to freedom of speech. Media Watchdog Reporters Without Borders said the action threatened the diversity and freedom of news coverage. Echo Moscow, an influential private station, has also come through a series of financial and managerial troubles. Online newsite NTV has also experienced certain difficulties, and changed its name to NewsRu.
In 1991 the Russian federation adapted the Law on Media of Mass Information, which declared freedom of speech, information and expression as the fundamental rights for all media in order to perform their required role in society. However, in 1995 the modification of this Law has limited the freedom of the media as to their choice of reporting on their diverse views and opinions of political parties. Moreover, many of the previously adopted laws and regulations have undergone serious adjustments and corrections. One of the most important and intensively discussed issues is between the right of a journalist to seek and circulate information and national laws on state secret and terrorism. This problem that was the most obvious in the media was the coverage of the military conflict in Chechnya. Several media outlets, and individual journalists, have been warned by the ministry of information about the way they present this conflict. Journalists working in Chechnya are not only required to have special authorisation issued by federal authorities, but they also have to be accompanied by federal representatives. On many occasions the Russian Information Centre in Chechnya, is the only source of information for journalists who are not allowed to receive information from other sources.
Until not long ago, one of the crucial criteria determining the relative independence of media in post-communist Russia was it’s being private, rather than state owned. This seemed to be a valid argument at the time. Despite the progress being achieved in broadcasting media in post-communist Russia, the present picture of media is far from optimistic, and political situations and influence over media are not beneficial to the consolidation of democracy. (Freedom House, Press Freedom in the World, 1995-1999). The media in Russia has moved from propaganda in communist times to manipulation in post-communist times. The media can play the role of the “Fourth Sector”, alongside other state institutions, provided it is pluralistic and free of obsessive governmental or private control and censorship.
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