Russian Media Model: Ownership Structures Professor Elena Vartanova

Russian Media Model: Ownership Structures

• Professor Elena Vartanova

• Faculty of Journalism

• Moscow State University/

• Aleksander Institute, Helsinki University

Types of Ownership

• State companies: VGTRK, ITAR-TASS, RIA ‘Novosti’

• Mixed ownership: Channel 1

• Private companies

• Large recourse companies with core sectors outside media business (Prof-Media, Gazprom-media)
• Large industrial enterprises with various interests (AiF, MK)
• Companies with core media businesses (radio: Russkaja Media Grouppa; magazines: Hachette-Fillipacci-Sckulev, Id Rodionov)

Top Publishing Companies

State Owned VGTRK

• CEO Oleg Dobrodeyev

• Structure

• TV: 3 federal channels
• Rossija: penetration - 90%, rating - 20-22%
• Kultura,
• Sport
• + Euronews Russia, RTR Planeta, Vesti-24
• Radio:
• 3 nation-wide news channels: Radio Rossiji, Golos Rossiji, Mayak
• 3 light music stations for ‘ordinary people’: Orfey, Yunost’, Nostalgia
• News agency: RIA ‘Novosti’
• Regional companies: 80 GTRK

What Owns Gazprombank?

• Gazprom Media (Nikolai Senkevich)

• 94,14% shares of Gazprom Media are owned by state company Gazprom

• Rumors about IPO

• Radio

• RadioDom Gazprom Media: 4 stations,
• Ekho of Moscow’
• TV
• NTV
• TNT
• NTV+ (digital satellite)
• NTV Media (TV advertising)
• Print media
• ‘7 dnei’ publishing house (4 magazines: 2 glossy + 1TVguide +1 political weekly)
• Tribuna (daily)
• Izvesija (daily)

Interros Holding Company: Media Interests

• Prof-Media

• Print media
• Komsomolskaya pravda (daily)
• Sovetskiji sport (daily)
• Express gazeta (daily)
• Belorousskaya gazeta (daily)
• 4 magazines
• Radio
• Radio corporation ‘Prof-media’: 4 stations
• Online
• Rambler (IPO in 2005)
• Distribution
• Delivery network ‘Segodnya’
• Printing plant ‘Prof-Media Print’
• Cinema ‘Cinema park’

New Player: Promsvyaz’kapital

• Promsvyaz’kapital= Promsvyaz’bank

• Media assets

• Print media
• Trud (daily, purchased by $8 mln)
• AiF (control share)
• Distribution: retail networks
• Mosoblpechat (Moscow)
• Metropress (St. Petersburg)
• Printing house: ‘Media pressa’

RMG - Leader of Radio Market

• CEO and owner Sergey Kozhevnikov

• Radio

• 6 stations: Russkoje Radio, Russkoje Radio-2, Dynamite FV, Maximum, Monte Carlo,Hit FM

• Advertising

• Gramophone Reklama

• Production

• Gramophone Records

• Concert Activities

• Rosconcert

• Print Media

• ‘Penguin’ magazine

Changes at Magazines Market

• Publishing House ‘Sekret firmy’

• Weeklies: 3
• Online: Gazeta.ru
• Books
• Events

• Publishing House ‘Rodionov’: Rodionov-50% shares, Makhmoudov and Bokarev-both 25% (Ural and Kousbass mining company)

• Weeklies: 3
• Glossies: 3
• Specialized magazines: 2
• Recent purchaise: daily ‘Business’ bought from ‘Sekret firmy’

Kommersant: Restructuring Management

• Owner: Berezovsky? Patarkatsashvili?

• Alisher Usmanov! (08.2006), estimate price: $ 200 mln.

• United Editorial office (joint technical services)
• Kommersant (daily)
• Den’gi (weekly)
• Vlast’ (weekly)
• Avtopilot (monthly)
• Molotok (monthly)

Foreign ownership

• Bertelsmann

• RenTV: 30% shares bought from Lesnevsky’ family (the rest - 70% - was sold by RAO ‘EES Rossii’ to Severstal Group, which in turn re-sell 35% to Surgutneftegaz Group)

• Sanoma

• Independent Media
• Magazines: 20, including Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Men’s Health, Esquire, Harvard Business Review
• Newspapers: The Moscow Times, The St. Petersburg Times, Vedomosti, Na Roublevke
• Publishing House ‘Alpina Business Books’

Ownership and Management Relations: Models

Major Pressures over Russian Media

• Soviet Media

• Integrated Political & Business Elite (Nomenklatura)

• Ideological Guidance (censorship+self-censorship)

• Operation of the media economy

• Technology

• Audiences

• (letters to media)