By IPS Correspondents
MOSCOW, Apr 4 2001 (IPS)

A takeover bid by shareholders of Russia’s only remaining national television channel (NTV) has prompted journalists to resort to high-profile protest action.

The dispute reached its boiling point on Apr 3, when NTV shareholder and creditor, state-controlled gas giant Gazprom and its outlet Gazprom-Media, held a shareholders’ meeting to oust NTV management and appoint their own people.

NTV journalists rejected the move, arguing it would lead to censorship. On Apr 3, the NTV introduced a logo in the left corner of the TV screen carrying the word “protest” in red letters.

The following day, on Apr 4, NTV stopped airing its usual programmes. The channel only aired a live picture from the company’s headquarters, stamped with words: “In protest against illegal removal of NTV management the company airs only the news.”

At a news conference at the Ostankino television centre, NTV journalists vowed to support their current director-general Yevgeny Kiselyov.

Support for NTV came from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as from liberal party Yabloko and its leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who all argued that the Kremlin was not interested in having independent mass media in Russia.

“Despite all official pronouncements, the Kremlin just wants to silence all dissent in order to feed the population with blatant lies,” said Yavlinsky.

Yabloko’s move to debate the issue in the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russian parliament, was defeated by 193 votes against 108.

The crisis was sparked by Gazprom’s move to oust NTV founder Vladimir Gusinsky and his group from the board of directors and appoint new management.

Gazprom-Media director-general Alfred Kokh argued that Gazprom- Media, which controls 46 per cent of NTV, secured the support of Capital Research Management, a U.S. mutual fund, that bought 4.5 per cent of NTV from Gusinsky in 1999.

Immediately, the board met to appoint U.S. investment banker Boris Jordan the new director general, Vladimir Kulistikov, a former NTV journalist, as chief editor, while Kokh claimed the post of NTV chairman.

On Apr 3, Jordan pledged his allegiance to the “independence” of NTV. He alleged that NTV faced a financial crisis and vowed to improve its fortunes. Jordan said NTV’s operating losses had reached 70 million US dollars, demanding the company to form a “crisis management”. Jordan and Kulistikov ruled out the use of troops to force themselves into the NTV offices.

Jordan came to Russia in the early 1990s and soon set up his own investment company. Kokh and Jordan are believed to have engineered the “loans-for-shares” auctions in the mid-1990s in which a group of Russian businessmen acquired factories at low prices. NTV television led a campaign against Kokh and Jordan, accusing them of receiving bribes.

Since then, NTV has remained opposed to both Kokh and Jordan. “NTV journalists will never accept a situation in which one looter, swindler and scoundrel is trying to appoint another one like himself to be our boss,” NTV director-general Kiselyov said. He also ruled out compromise. “We are not going to talk with these racketeers,” Kiselyov added.

However, NTV journalists have conceded that the “Czech scenario” would not work in Russia, even though a rally in downtown Moscow, on Mar 31, in support of NTV attracted up to 15,000 people.

Earlier this year, employees of Czech state television went on strike to protest the appointment of a new head. The government backed out after thousands of people protested day after day in central Prague, the capital.

Kiselyov appealed to NTV supporters not to commit anything that could provoke the authorities, and only attend those meetings and gatherings sanctioned by the authorities.

However, Moscow’s chief court bailiff Vladimir Zhmyachkin told the official news agency, RIA, on Apr 4 that there would be no “armed assault” to take over NTV. But official comments, mainly by low-key officials, suggest that the controversy surrounding NTV is nothing but a business dispute.

Yabloko says it has set up a “permanent post” inside the NTV to prevent any violent take-over.

So far, no one has any idea how the dispute would end.

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