Change Is As Change Does

Michael Hedges January 12, 2012 Follow on Twitter

The turns and twists continue apace from last year’s last weeks into this for media companies. New bosses are in. Old one’s out. Sometimes old one’s are back. If anything, there’s lots of shuffling, occasionally with lots of money and always with great connections.

Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who announced in late December intention to seek the Russian presidency, sought to broaden his media horizons by making an offer for television channel Rain, web portal Slon.ru and magazine Big City. Negotiations with owner Natalie Sindeeva “are continuing,” reported Gazeta.ru (January 10), “but have entered a passive stage.”  Mr. Prokhorov gained fortune in the mining business, Norilsk Nickel and Polyus Gold, and fame as owner of the US NBA basketball team New Jersey Nets. His Russian media interests, so far, include media group ZhV!, which owns cable television channel ZhV!, web portal F5 and high profile magazines Snob and Russian Pioneer, and RBC Information Systems (RBC), which owns a web portal, newspaper and television channel under the RBC name.  

Named to head media group ZhV!, reported Interfax (January 8), is Russian GQ magazine editor-in-chief Nikolai Uskov. “I feel, understand and believe that modern mass media must be multimedia,” he said to website glomu.ru (January 10). “We have to allow readers and advertisers to surround the product.” Uskov is, said Moscow Times (January 10), “the darling of the hipster crowd.”

“It has nothing to do with (Mikhail Prokhorov’s) political decisions,” added Mr. Uskov. “I am confident of his respect for the work of journalists and he is well aware that any interference in editorial policy should not be and it certainly will not be.” Shortly after touting his political ambitions on a NTV talk show in December, Mr. Prokhorov hired the talk show host – Anton Krasovsky - to manage his presidential campaign staff.

In mid-December were rumblings that Mr. Prokhorov would buy the Kommersant media house from another Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov. Some media watchers took the alleged offer quite seriously, occurring as it did when Mr. Usmanov fired both the editor and publisher of magazine Kommersant Vlast for publishing a photo of a damaged ballot scrawled with a rather obscene reference to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Mr. Usmanov called Mr. Prokhorov’s offer “a good joke” and promptly offered to buy RBC.  Last October UTV Media, which Mr. Usmanov principally owns, sold 49% of television sports channel 7TV to the Walt Disney Company.

Not to be outdone in the shuffling of chairs, Rafael Akopov replaced (December 30) ProfMedia president Julia Solovieva, who had served not quite one year. “The time has come when we must move on,” said Ms Solovieva in a statement. Mr. Akopov was ProfMedia president and CEO from 2004 until February 2011, when he became CEO of Interros, the holding company that owns ProfMedia. Interros deputy general director Larisa Zelkova moves up to CEO February 1st. ProfMedia owns television channels TV3 and MTV Russia, web portals Rambler and lenta.ru, as well as radio channels Avtoradio, Energy Russia, Radio Romantika and Humor FM.

CTC Media CEO Anton Kudryashov left in mid-December “by mutual consent.” CTC Media’s financial performance has lagged the market. CTC Media is minority owned by Modern Times Group. Mr Kudryashov, named Russian Television Academy manager of the year for 2010, jumped to mobile telecom VimpleCom.

Then, too, there was a new entry into the Russian media realm as Siberian Business Union (SBU) acquired the radio channels of European Media Group (EMG) from French media house Lagardère (December 26). Exit from the Russian media market for Lagardère was largely due to changes in the media law restricting foreign operators to less than 50% stake holdings.

Earlier Lagardère off loaded its magazine holdings to the Hearst Corporation. SBU is principally a mining company in the Kemerovo region of Siberia, owning TV, radio stations and newspapers.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Media in Russia

Media in Russia is big business and big politics. Media companies are consolidating as they move into new media and new territories. At the same time independence is still questioned. It's all changing. ftm looks at media in Russia and its neighbors, includes Resources, 124 pages. PDF file (January 2012)

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