Russian deputy PM defends Gazprom as media owner

Posted by Julian Evans on June 6, 2006 at 12:19 PM

Dmitri Medvedev, the deputy prime minister of Russia and potential successor to president Putin, today defended the role of Gazprom, state-owned gas company, as the country's largest owner of media assets.

He said that when Gazprom bought Media Most from former oligarch Vladimir Gusinky in 2001, the assets "had enormous debts", but since Gazprom became manager of media assets such as TV channel NTV or radio station Echo Moskvy, "the capitalization of the holding company increased significantly".

He went on: "Should Gazprom continue as the owner of these media assets? For some time in the future it should. As to the future...it's a question of tactical viability and expediency, of how profitable it would be to sell this asset. Some businessmen bid for them in 2001, but the bids were not at all a reflection of market value. Today the situation has improved, but there's still room for improvement."

Gazprom-Media is buying more and more assets in the Russian media market. Last year, it expanded into the newspaper market, buying the Izvestia newspaper after the Kremlin criticized its coverage of the Beslan terrorist crisis. It has been tipped as a future buyer of Komsomolskaya Pravda, the nation's most popular newspaper, which is currently owned by Prof-Media, a media holding company owned by oligarch Vladimir Potanin.

More news from the 59th World Newspaper Congress

And our video blog with Robb Montgomery and Visual Editors

Posted in :