REN TV and St Petersburg’s Fifth Channel, the last semi-independent private TV stations, will come under state control next year. According Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, news bulletins on both channels’ news bulletins will be restructured next year. The state-owned, pro-Kremlin English language television station “Russia Today” will take over responsibility for their news broadcasts from 2010.
Campaigners accused the Kremlin of killing off the last vestiges of independent television in Russia.
“This means independent TV will be destroyed. It will disappear,” said Oleg Ptashkin, a former correspondent with Russia’s state-run Channel One TV who now runs an independent journalists’ union. (Guardian)
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