All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company

History

On 21 June 1990, the 1st Congress of People's Deputies adopted a resolution on the RSFSR media, assigning the RSFSR Council of Ministers to take measures to establish the Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the RSFSR. On 14 July 1990, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR established the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. The former deputy editor of the newspaper Moscow News, Oleg Poptsov, was appointed as its first chairman.

On 10 December 1990, Radio Rossii began broadcasting. It started broadcasting on a radio channel with the All Union First Programme of All-Union Radio, as well as with the Radio Mayak channel and with the Third All-Union Radio program. On 13 May 1991, the VGTRK began broadcasting television to Russia (originally scheduled to begin broadcasting in March 1991, but was postponed) and broadcast with the Second Central Television program. On 16 September 1991, the Second Program of USSR Central Television closed, and VGTRK took over the remaining airtime. On 18 April 1992, channel Rossiya 4 began broadcasting.

On 6 July 1992, the fourth channel started broadcasting to Russian Universities, and broadcast with the 4th channel Ostankino until 16 January 1994, and from 17 January 1994, with the NTV channel, as a part of RTR television, which had created the "Russian Universities" feed. In February 1996, by Presidential decree of Boris Yeltsin, Oleg Poptsov stepped down from the post of RTR Chairman. Eduard Sagalaev was appointed president of RTR's "Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation (MIBC)" TV6 Moscow. On 11 November 1996, the "Russian Universities" block stopped broadcasting, and its airtime passed to NTV. The first satellite TV networks, "The RTR TV network", "Meteor Sports", and "Meteor Cinema" were launched. On 1 November 1997, the VGTRK began broadcasting an educational channel called "Culture". It began broadcasting on a VHF channel.

On 8 May 1998, the presidential decree "On Improvement of Public Electronic Media" was drafted based on information regarding RTR. Based on the decree of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Company, the All-Russian radio station "Mayak" and the Russian State Radio Company Voice of Russia were created.

In 2000, VGTRK became one of the members of Euronews and organized the Russian-language service of this organization. In 2002, VGTRK acquired a share in Euronews' stock.

On 3 December 2012, the VGTRK began test broadcasts of the first Russian cinema TV channel, "Kino-TV". On 17 December 2012, the VGTRK began test broadcasts with the high-definition TV channel Rossiya HD. Rossiya HD started regular broadcasting on the 29th of December 2012. On 29 January 2013, at the Annual Exhibition and Forum of Television and Telecommunications (CSTB-2013), RTR announced the merger of eleven digital channels under a single brand, called "Digital TV". It includes documentary, sports, entertainment, and movie channels, of which are "Russian-HD", "My Planet", "Nauka 2.0", "Sport", "Sport-1-HD", " The Fighting Club", "Russian Roman", "Russian Bestseller", "Strana", and "Sarafan". On 9 May 2013, the channel began broadcasting a documentary about Russian history, "History", which had also entered the TV package "Digital TV". On 4 April 2014, the VGTRK began broadcasting a channel dedicated to domestic detective films and TV series under the name "Russian Detective". 15 April 2014 saw the launch of the official international cognitive entertainment channel IQ HD. On 1 June 2014, the launch of the multichannel was announced.

As a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union expressed plans for a broad ban on three of the biggest Russian state-run broadcasters in early May 2022. These TV channels are "mouthpieces that amplify Putin's lies and propaganda aggressively," said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The BBC reported that they are thought to include the widely watched Russian-language VGTRK channels Rossiya and RTR Planeta. Before, the EU had already suspended RT and Sputnik, which broadcast in English, German, and Spanish. On 8 July, the company was sanctioned.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced in June 2022 that in the region around the occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the one million inhabitants in the area would henceforth be supplied with the most important Russian channels. Instead of Ukrainian television. In particular, those of the state broadcasting group VGTRK were activated.

In March 2022, YouTube blocked VGTRK's channel along with other Russian state media outlets. In February 2024, YouTube blocked several dozen other channels from the corporation, which included the channels of the regional divisions in Rostov-on-Don, Pskov, Vologda, Murmansk, and others.

Operations

VGTRK owns and operates five national television stations, an international television network, twenty thematic digital television channels, five radio stations, over eighty regional broadcasters, and a multimedia online streaming platform.

In 1993, VGTRK became a member of the European Broadcasting Union, entitled to key decisions in EBU operations. The EBU suspended VGTRK's membership on 1 March 2022 after VGTRK announced an intention to withdraw from the EBU due to the EBU excluding VGTRK from the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 as a consequence of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The suspension was reaffirmed and made indefinite at a meeting of the EBU's Executive Board on 26 May 2022.

Television

• Russia-1 (Россия-1) — entertainment, news (formerly Russia, RTR-1, RTR & RTV)
• Russia-24 (Россия-24) — news channel (formerly ru)
• Russia-K (Россия-К) — cultural programming (formerly Culture, RTR-2)
• Carousel (Карусель) — child & youth programming (jointly with Channel One Russia)

International channel

• RTR-Planeta (РТР-Планета)

Thematic

• Moscow 24 (Москва 24) — News channel broadcasting in Moscow (formerly ru and ru)
• 360° Moscow Region
• 20 theme-channels under the brand "Digital Television".

Former channels

• Bibigon (Бибигон) – a channel dedicated to children and adolescents, replaced by Carousel in 2010.
• Russia-2 (Россия-2) — sports, entertainment, documentaries, movies, news channel, acquired by Gazprom-Media in 2015, replaced by Match TV

Radio

• Radio Kultura (Радио Культура) – cultural radio, only broadcast terrestrially at 91.6 FM in Moscow
• Radio Mayak (Радио Маяк) – general entertainment, current affairs, and adult contemporary music
• Radio Rossii (Радио России) – talk radio and regional programming
• Radio Yunost (Радио Юность) – Online only, formerly European and American pop music, now older Soviet music
• Vesti FM (Вести FM) – news radio

Online

• Smotrim (Смотрим) – Multimedia online platform with content from all of VGTRK's assets

Regional

In addition to the operations at its Moscow headquarters, VGTRK's footprint includes 83 regional production studios and 5 territorial branches, providing coverage to every region in Russia.

Regional production studios are located in the capital or administrative center of federal subjects, regardless of if the capital or administrative center is the most populous city in the federal subject. At minimum, each produces regional newscasts during times of regional variation in the schedule of Russia-1. Many produce supplementary regional newscasts for insertion into Russia-24, as well as regional news magazines and current affairs programming for insertion into both Russia-1 and Russia-24. Most also produce regional radio newscasts and cultural programming for insertion into Radio Rossyia and—less commonly—Radio Mayak or Vesti FM or both. Furthermore, some operate their own television channels and radio stations, broadcasting additional regional programming.

Territorial branches produce their own television and radio newscasts, though generally in lesser quantities than regional production studios and for broadcast to a smaller coverage area. Each territorial branch is subordinate to a nearby regional production studio.

The names of the regional production studios and territorial branches all begin with ru. They are shown grouped by federal district in the table below. Each territorial branch is grouped with its associated regional production studio.

Executive board

Chairmen:

• (1990–96)
• Eduard Sagalaev (1996–97)
• Nikolay Svanidze (1997–98)
• Mikhail Shvydkoy (1998–2000)
• Oleg Dobrodeev (2000–present)

Notes

References

References

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4. link. BECTИ.ru. (4 November 2010)
5. "Многоязыкое вещание: как ВГТРК сохраняет разнообразие национальных культур в России – Новости на Вести.ru".
6. (6 May 2022). "Weapons of mass deception. Russian television propaganda in wartime".
7. (27 May 2022). "Coining lies. Kremlin spends 1.5 Billion per year to spread disinformation and propaganda".
8. (11 January 2017). "Propaganda in demand".
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10. (21 June 2022). "Ukraine: Gesamte Region Cherson auf russisches Fernsehen umgestellt".
11. (2022-03-12). "YouTube заблокировал РБК, ТАСС, каналы МИА "Россия сегодня" и ВГТРК".
12. (11 March 2022). "YouTube объявил о "немедленной блокировке" каналов, связанных с российскими государственными СМИ".
13. (2024-02-06). "YouTube заблокировал несколько десятков аккаунтов ВГТРК".
14. (6 February 2024). "YouTube заблокировал несколько десятков региональных каналов ВГТРК".
15. "О компании".
16. (1 March 2022). "EBU Statement on Russian Members". European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
17. (31 May 2022). "EBU Suspends Russian Broadcasters".
18. (2 January 2019). "Commercial or public service actors? Controversies in the nature of Russia's regional mass media". Russian Journal of Communication.
19. (2013). "The Regional Dimension of Russian Broadcasting". World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies.
20. "Регионы".