Although the state formally controls only two main broadcasters, many private ones come directly or indirectly under a media empire of Yury Kovalchuk, a friend of Mr Putin. Besides National Media Group, which has stakes in three TV channels, including 25% of Channel One, Mr Kovalchuk also has a large indirect stake in Gazprom Media, Russia’s largest media group, which owns five television channels, several radio stations and a publishing company. Gazprom Media’s structure is complex: it is 100%-owned by Gazprom bank, almost half of which belongs to Gazprom’s pension fund. Most of this is managed by a firm linked to Mr Kovalchuk.
Companies linked to Mr Kovalchuk also control most television advertising. In 2010 he bought Video International, Russia’s largest advertising agency. Gazprom Media and Video International account for two-thirds of the country’s television-advertising market. Until recently Mr Kovalchuk played almost no role in Gazprom Media, but he has recently been more active, say insiders. He was involved in the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, a founder of Video International, as head of Gazprom Media.
Mr Lesin is no stranger to Gazprom Media assets. Most of them, including NTV, were seized from Vladimir Gusinsky, a media tycoon who created them and then fled the country after Mr Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000. Mr Lesin, then minister for press and mass communications, endorsed a secret agreement under which Mr Gusinsky was made to sell his assets to Gazprom in exchange for his own freedom and safety. The agreement served as evidence in the European Court of Human Rights that the attacks on Mr Gusinsky were politically motivated and in breach of the European convention. As head of Gazprom Media, Mr Lesin last autumn negotiated the purchase of media assets from Vladimir Potanin, another Yeltsin-era oligarch.
