NTV (Russia) - History

History

Vladimir Gusinsky's company was founded in 1993 and attracted the best journalists and news anchors of the time: Tatiana Mitkova, Leonid Parfyonov, Mikhail Osokin, Yevgeniy Kiselyov, Vladimir A. Kara-Murza (father of Vladimir V. Kara-Murza), Victor Shenderovich and others. The channel set high professional standards in Russian television, giving live coverage and sharp analysis of current events. Its political puppet show Kukly ("Puppets"), had become a signature of the time when the freedom of speech was virtually unlimited. NTV was reputed for its news operation and popular entertainment programmes. The flagship news programme of the channel is Segodnya ("Today") daily at 7 p.m and 10 p.m. first broadcasted during the early days of NTV when it was known before the Soviet Union dissolutes as Program 4. and weekly news commentary programme Itogi ("Summing up") with Kiselyov on Sundays at 9 p.m., both top-rated.

NTV was heavy on criticism of the Russian government, especially with respect to the First and Second Chechen Wars (even going as far as conducting interviews with Chechen rebel leaders). However, it favourably commented on President Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996.

By 1999 NTV had achieved an audience of 102 million, covering about 70% of Russia's territory, and was available in other former Soviet republics.

During parliamentary elections in 1999 and presidential elections in 2000 NTV was critical of the Second Chechen War, Vladimir Putin and the political party Unity backed by him. In the puppet show Kukly in the beginning of February 2000, the puppet of Putin acted as Little Zaches in a story based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Little Zaches called Cinnabar", in which blindness causes villagers mistake an evil gnome for a beautiful youth.

This provoked a fierce reaction of Putin's supporters. On February 8 the newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti published a letter signed by the Rector of St. Petersburg State University Lyudmila Verbitskaya, the Dean of its Law Department Nikolay Kropachyov and some of Putin's other presidential campaign assistants that urged to prosecute the authors of the show for what they considered a criminal offence.