Influence Means Business With Personality

Michael Hedges September 30, 2013 - Follow on Twitter

Influence is a fundamental ambition for the news media. It can be mercurial. Highly influential new media covers two subjects more than most: business and gossip. Mixing them is the key to being highly cited.

Russian media monitoring institute Medyalohyya (www.mig.ru) has compiled rankings of news media outlets based on citations and inferred influence.  Newspapers, magazines, television channels, radio channels and online news portals were scored and ranked along with major journalists. Rankings from the first half 2013 are compared with first half 2012 for an alluring view of today’s Russian news media.

Newspapers were most often cited and, thus, considered most influential among Russian news media. Topping the list of newspapers and leading all Russian news media is the daily business and political journal Kommersant. Citations for daily Izvestia, ranked second among newspapers, rose considerably year-to-year to challenge Kommersant. Business daily Vedomosti, joint venture of Sanoma, the Financial Times and Dow Jones, ranked third, off one spot.

Official Russian government journal Rossiyskaya Gazeta ranked 4th. Moscow daily tabloid Moskovskij Komsomolets moved to 5th place in the citations rankings, up from 9th year on year. Novaya Gazeta dropped to 8th in the rankings from 5th in 2012.

Among magazines, the Forbes Russian edition outranked all others and, year-to-year increased citations by more than one-third. The New Times and CEO, a new entrant, followed. The Forbes Russian edition strictly adheres to the Forbes business-oriented brand with, of course, the trademark top lists. New Times recently published jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s letter about going on a hunger strike. CEO is a lifestyle magazine for the rich and powerful complete with lists of who’s who.

State-owned Russia 24 became the most highly cited national TV news channel, moving to the top spot from 3rd place in 2012. Government-owned general interest First Channel slipped to 2nd place. TV Dodzd (Storm) – “the optimistic channel” – moved into 3rd place among cited TV channels. It’s a mostly live, almost free-form TV channel available on digital multiplexes and satellite.

Radio channels are not to be forgotten among highly cited news media in Russia. News-talk national channel Ekho Moskvy is top ranked, with more citations than any individual television channel. All-news Russian News Service (PHC) ranked second and business-oriented Kommersant FM third. Radio Svoboda, the Russian-language service of RFE/RL, ranked 4th. Moving from 8th place in the 2012 citations ranking to 5th was Business FM.

The top two online news portals in Russia – lenta.ru and gazeta.ru – also received more citations in the first half 2013 than any individual television channel. Both are general interest news portals. Operating much like a live television news channel, somewhat in the tabloid vain, is lifenews.ru, which ranked 3rd among online news portals.

The most cited Russian journalist in the Medyalohyya rankings for 2013 is Moskovskij Komsomolets editor-in-chief Pavel Gusev, who is also chairman of the Moscow Journalists Union and considered a Moscow insider. His citation ranking in 2012 was 12th overall. Second on the 2013 rankings is long standing and internationally known commentator Vladimir Pozner.

Ranked 3rd is TV news anchor Ksenia Sobchak who, despite celebrity status and family ties to the St. Petersburg power centers, has become an outspoken political activist. Falling from 1st ranking in 2012 was Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief and part-owner Alexei Venediktov, now ranked 5th.

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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