Russia: speculation arises that media industry company Gazprom may buy one of the last independent dailies

Posted by Diana Epstein on April 4, 2006 at 1:53 PM

Russia's state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom is considering purchasing the influential liberal newspaper Kommersant, a Moscow business daily reported Tuesday. But counter to what was reported in newspapers Moscow, the senior official with Gazprombank, which is a subsidiary of Gazprom, denied the bank was involved in negotiations to acquire Kommersant.

Gazprombank Vice President Nikolai Senkevich said, "As general director of Gazprom-Media and vice president of Gazprombank I wish to state that neither Gazprom-Media nor Gazprombank have been involved in negotiations with the owners of Kommersant on an acquisition."

Senkevich said the speculated cost of such a deal was not “commercially reasonable or attractive,” said the Russian News and Information Agency.

If confirmed, the deal would extend Kremlin influence over one of the last major media outlets in Russia not already owned by Gazprom or the state ahead of parliamentary elections in 2007 and a presidential election in 2008, when President Vladimir Putin is due to step down. Gazprom-media already owns the NTV television channel, a controlling stake in Echo Moscow radio and also the nation's most established daily newspaper, Izvestia.

Echo Moscow and Izvestia still retain a degree of editorial independence, but have limited impact, while NTV's coverage of controversial issues differs little from that of fully state-owned, pro-Putin national channels. Russia's opposition media is otherwise reduced to a handful of small-circulation Moscow dailies and internet sites like Gazeta.

Source: AFP and Russian News and Information Agency

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