- (AFP) -- It was curtains for Russia's last private national
television station TVS -- a loss-making operation that tried desperately
to stay afloat and needle a state media that has been kowtowing to President
Vladimir Putin ahead of nationwide elections.
-
- The battle surrounding TVS and the string of characters
involved are as hard to follow as a Tolstoy novel but the end result is
that Russia is now broadcasting only state-controlled television.
-
- On Sunday, TVS was replaced by a national sports channel
called Rossiya Sport.
-
- "Goodbye! We have been switched off," a brief
message flashed across TVS at midnight before being replaced by the test
card -- the off-air screen -- and a piercing beep.
-
- The TVS saga is characteristic of the drama and secrecy
that envelopes much of Russia and the political and business elite that
is now in charge.
-
- All that is certain is that a group of respected and
well-trained reporters -- who spent two years hopping channels as their
old operations were shut down and eventually landed at TVS -- are now out
of work.
-
- "I found out that we had been switched off after
listening to the radio this morning," TVS news editor Yelena Korobova
told NTV television, which was once a star independent channel and is today
run by the state-controlled Gazprom energy giant.
-
- "What stunned me is that their (the courts') excuse
was that they were defending viewers' rights. If nothing else, that is
the one thing that we were defending," she added.
-
- NTV news showed a group of reporters gathered at what
appeared to be TVS headquarters, with one asking another: "I don't
know, should we be going to work today or what?"
-
- The simplest and immediate answer to that question is
no.
-
- A more difficult question is how to decipher the endless
media struggles that have plagued Russian politics over recent years.
-
- They seem to implicate not only Putin's government but
also a band of powerful business barons, inevitably including the controversial
exile Boris Berezovsky.
-
- The twisted tale began in 2001, when a group of journalists
were forced out of NTV amid a financial dispute that many said in fact
revolved around politics.
-
- NTV had been running hard-hitting reports about government
corruption and drew no punches in its coverage of the bloody Russian assault
on its separatist republic of Chechnya.
-
- The sacked journalists included chief editor Yevgeny
Kiselyov -- a popular host of a television news magazine and himself a
former employee of the KGB.
-
- They were taken in by a small private television company,
TV6, controlled by the maverick Berezovsky, a business magnate who is a
fervent Putin opponent who has opted for exile in London to avoid corruption
charges involving his numerous Russian business interests.
-
- Berezovsky continues to dabble in Russian politics, flirting
with both Communist and pro-reform groups in a bid to organize an opposition
force ahead of a parliamentary in December and a presidential election
next year.
-
- When Berezovsky invited Kiselyov and his team to TV6
in 2001, the move was seen as part of his anti-Putin drive.
-
- The Kremlin was not amused and the courts eventually
shut down Berezovsky's television station.
-
- The government then rebaptised it TVS and relaunched
it with a group of pro-government business barons in charge. But it kept
Kiselyov on.
-
- Berezovsky reacted by sueing the station, angry at the
government move and reportedly offended that Kiselyov had agreed to work
with pro-Putin forces.
-
- What followed next was a string of court cases, ending
in a ruling that Kiselyov had never been granted the official papers to
take editorial charge of TVS.
-
- Berezovsky was not immediately available for comment
Sunday but Kiselyov vowed to fight on -- but as a political figure, not
a media chief.
-
- "If someone seriously asks to become a (parliament)
deputy, then I will seriously weight this offer," Kiselyov on Sunday
told Moscow Echo radio, another struggling private media company.
-
- "This would give me a new outlet for airing my views,
to criticize the president's decisions ... and fight for a free media,"
Kiselyov said.
-
- Analysts question the Kremlin's involvement in the TVS
fight and Putin himself denies any interest in the developments.
-
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