Ernst is the head Channel One, one of the state-owned television stations in Russia and the most-watched network in the country. He is, as Joshua Yaffa aptly described him in a recent New Yorker piece, "the premier visual stylist of the Putin era." In addition to heading Channel One, Ernst was responsible for helping to turn around the Russian film industry in the 2000s. He has produced several of the highest-grossing films in Russian history, including "Night Watch," the 2004 sci-fi/fantasy movie that brought Timur Bekmambetov to prominence: Bekmambetov would go on to helm "Wanted" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." Ernst has also brought out innovative and award-winning television serials, including an adaptation of Anatoly Rybakov's glasnost-era bestseller about Stalinism, "Children of the Arbat." The television version starred Chulpan Khamatova, who helped to carry the Olympic flag in Ernst's opening.
Ernst's work on big and small screens developed in the wake of the 1998 ruble collapse, the second time the Russian economy bottomed out in the 1990s. Ernst took over the channel in September 1999 — the very same month Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister — and announced that both Russian cinema and Russian television needed to be "reborn"
