NTV's Growing Pains

A draft decree on expanding NTV Independent Television's broadcast hours has already been awaiting President Boris Yeltsin's signature for several months. Many well-informed experts say the decree is likely to be signed in the coming weeks. The long-awaited expansion of the television company will be in some sense a landmark in the development of independent Russian television.


The non-state television company has in the past 2 1/2 years of its existence acquired the solid reputation of a highly professional and democratically oriented broadcaster. After receiving enormous credits and subsidies from the wealthy Muscovite banker and president of the Most financial group, Vladimir Gusinsky, the television company has since been able to firmly stand on its own. Its broadcast signals reach tens of millions of viewers throughout a rather large part of Russia. And its advertising revenues have already brought profitable returns on the initial investments.


But the problem is that NTV is shown only during the evening. The rest of the time, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., state-owned Russian Television is on the air and offers its viewers cultural and educational programs from the low-budget television channel Rossiiskiye Universitety.


NTV president Igor Malashenko, who is clearly counting on the financial resources of Gusinsky, had already begun making attempts at the start of the year to gain control over the entire channel, appealing directly to the Russian president. His arguments for taking over the channel sounded convincing: "Rossiiskiye Universitety is badly put together, its program ratings are paltry and the government has no money to further the development of the channel. And NTV has everything: prestige, image, money, conceptions and a creative staff."


At that time, however, Malashenko was unable to get what he sought, since the former chairman of Russian Television, Oleg Poptsov, was apparently able to convince Yeltsin that he shouldn't relinquish state-controlled television frequencies to a private company. Now the situation has changed. Malashenko was effective in helping Yeltsin stay in power, was one of the people closest to the president on the pre-election team and cooperated closely with Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana.


Such things are not forgotten. Moreover, the current head of Russian Television, Eduard Sagalayev, recently announced that the government could no longer pay the $600,000 to $700,000 a month for the educational programs and that turning over the air time of Rossiskiye Universitety to NTV would be justified.


NTV could soon have from five to eight additional hours. (It is possible that Universitety will still hold on to several broadcast hours.) But is this cause for celebration on the part of NTV viewers? I wouldn't be too quick to make optimistic forecasts. For the possibility of doing more does not always mean that it will be better.


Today, NTV has a firm hold on prime-time television. By producing some of the best news programs in Russia, showing high quality films and creating the very successful satirical political puppet show "Kukly," the television company has managed to compete with and in many cases surpass other stations.


But adding daytime broadcasts would require a different approach to programming. The company, which is used to producing prime-time shows and earning large revenues from advertising, will have to adjust to a daytime television audience, composed mostly of pensioners and housewives. The channel will find it difficult to meet the costs of showing, for example, an expensive Hollywood thriller during the day's "dead hours." No one is likely to watch second-rate movies, and NTV would hardly go so far as to show Mexican soap operas, for its prestige would certainly suffer.


The same applies to the original programs that NTV would produce itself or buy for its new audience. Good programs are rarely inexpensive to make, and the daytime viewer would be unlikely to spend his time watching boring talk shows or silly game shows. There are things to be done at home, walks with the children, shopping and, of course, other television channels.


Repeating programs that appeared the previous evening is not a solution either. They would lose viewers who saw the evening program. Furthermore, NTV is largely watched by the most educated and professional part of society. And such people are at work during the day.


Besides, next year NTV plans to launch a sister company, NTV+, which will broadcast its programs to five satellite channels. This will require the majority of NTV's programs. It has already been announced that NTV+ will repeat the films and news programs of its parent company. But if repeats are kept to a minimum, it is hard to imagine what means will be required to preserve the quality and image of the channel.


NTV should also expect to encounter some stiff competition. REN Television, one of Russia's three largest television producers, has ambitious plans to broadcast its programs on a new channel, whose signal will cover many Russian cities with the help of local retransmission stations. Russian Television is also undertaking a powerful satellite project. And the military department has recently made public its readiness to turn over one of its frequencies to the new television company that is being started up by three former Yeltsin allies -- Oleg Poptsov, Bella Kurkova and Mikhail Poltoranin, as well as the television journalist Andrei Karaulov.


None of this bodes well for NTV. It is entirely possible that Malashenko's sense of euphoria over his undisputed success on the television market together with the financial expansion of Gusinsky into the mass-media sphere will be a great disappointment for NTV and its admirers. I shall be glad if this proves to be otherwise.





Grigory Simanovich is a freelance television critic. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.