The Russia Blog writes well and logically but has a nasty habit of using somewhat specious arguments (definitions 2 & 3) to make arguments with which I otherwise agree. I take particular exception to the paragraph quoted below the picture of VVP.
Popular and largest; Echo Moskvy (EM) is popular and RenTV is the largest - these, unfortunately for their owners, are not measures of audience reach or market share.
Recent numbers for leading top 10 Russian radio stations by audience share by market (i.e. city) and for the whole of Russia sees EM creep in at the bottom of the Moscow list and does not feature on the whole Russia list.
RenTV may well have the largest coverage, though I doubt that its technical reach is greater than Channels 1 & 2. As for all Russia audience share - 5th. Which in the current Russian market is nowhere - break even at best.
I will agree that there are plenty of outlets for informed/interested Russians to get many different cuts on the news of the day. The concern (anecdotally) is that too many (young) Russians are neither interested or informed. No desire to argue why that may be but here's the anecdote;Applicant for position in PR department of local marketing and PR firm and graduate of prestigious Moscow University claims not to read the newspapers or watch the news.
Report on Freedom of Speech in Russia, Putin Hires U.S. PR Firm:
Finally, the report accepts that the government controls all broadcast media in Russia almost as a given. We have written on this topic in-depth recently at Russia Blog, showing that some of the most popular state-owned media outlets like Echo Moscow Radio have frequently criticized the Kremlin, especially about the war in Chechnya. The information we presented also undercuts the report's claim that, “TV stations, now all controlled by the Kremlin or government associates, are also subject to very strict censorship.” The largest TV network in Russia, REN-TV, is privately owned and consists of 406 commercial TV-stations in Russia and the CIS, reaching an audience of 113 million people (the CIA World Factbook pegs Russia’s population this year at 142 million).
[composed and posted with
ecto
]
No comments:
Post a Comment