General director of the Russian Television and Radio Broadcast Network Gennady Sklyar
Photo: Grigoriy Sobchenko
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TV Signal Goes to Private Investors
The Russian monopoly transmitter Russian Television and Radio Broadcast Network may lose control of its market. The Ministry of Information and Communications has proposed a new conception for the development of digital television in Russia that proposes allowing private investors to finance the 67.5-billion ruble conversion in exchange for become transmitters, displacing RTRBN and saving that money in the federal budget.
Under the new conception, presented to an interagency working group on May 8, 90 percent of Russian households would have digital television by 2011. The budget for the digitalization program is 237.3 billion rubles, 148.1 billion rubles of which will come from federal and regional budgets, while the remainder will come from investors. Most of the private money will go for the purchase and installation of apparatus to be installed on transmission towers. Analysts note that the conception does not specify how investors will recoup their money.
RTRBN is highly opposed to the new conception. “A program for digitalization was practically conciliated at the level of a government commission led by First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedkov,” RTRBN general director Gennady Sklyar noted. “Because of the Ministry of Information and Communications' initiative, conciliation has to start all over again.” The initial proposal, Sklyar said, was for the transmission apparatus to be purchased with federal budget money. “The state should be the guarantor of the television signal,” Sklyar thought.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 15, 2007
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