New York Times - 01.22.2002

 

The New York Times

Sports Replaces Russia News Network

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's TV6 broadcasting was replaced by all-sports programming Tuesday, hours after authorities took the last independent, national television network off the air.

TV6 lost its broadcast signal at midnight, capping a series of legal battles that have revived concern about media freedom in Russia. Last year, independent NTV television was forced off the air after a protracted fight between journalists and their boss, tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, on one side, and the government-controlled Gazprom natural gas company, a shareholder, on the other.

News programming dominates Russia's nationwide networks and the stations often offer dramatically differing versions of events such as the war in Chechnya. TV6 had been the most critical of the war and the Kremlin. It had a news-heavy format but also had several popular entertainment shows.

Authorities cut off electricity and telephone service in TV6's Moscow studios, and severed its links to the approximately 150 cities TV6 served beyond its central transmission area.

The station was ordered closed on Jan. 11 after a minority shareholder, a pension fund owned by oil giant Lukoil, brought it to court to start liquidation procedures for failing to bring a profit. TV6 management maintained that the station was on firm financial footing and that the Lukoil suit was ordered by the government to silence the station's critical news reports. Lukoil is minority-owned by Russia's government.

President Vladimir Putin has said the liquidation proceedings were purely a business dispute.

TV6 anchor Andrei Norkin accused government officials of doing everything they could to shut down the station.

``Our government officials are very consistent,'' he said bitterly as he headed to an emergency staff meeting.

Early Tuesday, NTV-Plus, a Russian satellite TV service, began broadcasting its sports channel for free on Channel 6. The company was granted temporary rights to the frequency.

Press Minister Mikhail Lesin said Tuesday that permanent broadcasting rights on TV6 would go for bid on March 27, the Interfax news agency reported. He added that if TV6 would not be excluded if it can ``organize itself and solve its problems -- administrative and financial,'' Interfax reported.

Last week, TV6 managers voluntarily surrendered the station's broadcast license and announced the creation of a new corporation -- also named TV6 -- that would bid for the broadcast rights.

They also severed ties with Boris Berezovsky, the self-exiled tycoon and Kremlin opponent who owns the majority of shares in TV6.

But on Monday, TV6's general manager Yevgeny Kiselyov announced that the managers had changed their mind, saying only the station's shareholders had the right to surrender the license. He said TV6 management had surrendered the license under pressure from Media Minister Mikhail Lesin and the Kremlin, and that it had been told TV6 could stay on the air if it dropped Berezovsky.

Shortly after Kiselyov's announcement, bailiffs arrived at the Media Ministry demanding that TV6's old parent company be stripped of its license in line with the court order.

Speaking Tuesday on Echo of Moscow radio, Lesin said Kiselyov's announcement and the appearance of the bailiffs on the same day was an ``unpleasant coincidence.''

He also questioned whether Kiselyov had changed his mind under pressure from Berezovsky.

Kiselyov and most of the TV6 journalists joined the station last spring, after leaving NTV.

Unlike Gazprom's takeover of NTV, the TV6 closure has been accompanied by a minimum of public protest.

According to a January poll of 500 Muscovites by the ROMIR polling agency, 26 percent of respondents said the TV6 conflict was a business dispute. Only 3.8 percent said it was an attack on freedom of speech. Some 19.6 percent said it was part of the government's war with ``oligarchs,'' or politically connected tycoons. The poll had a margin of error of 2-4 percent.