Russian Federation

[RU] New Concept to Develop Broadcasting

IRIS 2008-2:1/28

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

A decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 29 November 2007 (# 1700-r) approved a Concept for the development of TV and radio broadcasting in Russian Federation in 2008-2015. This document has been worked out by the high-level Governmental Commission on development of TV and radio broadcasting chaired by Dmitry Medvedev in his capacity of 1st vice-chair of the Government.

The Concept states that analogue over-the-air broadcasting remains the only means of access to TV and radio programmes for 88.5 per cent of the population; 11 per cent have access to both over-the-air and cable transmissions, while just 0,9 per cent of the population have access to direct satellite TV and radio.

The aim of the Concept is to facilitate citizens in providing their “constitutional right to obtain socially important information”. Licensing remains the main instrument of the state policy in broadcasting and will continue to be performed by the executive branch of the government. There will be no limit as to the number of licenses provided to a given broadcaster. The main lever to develop broadcasting is seen in a transfer from analogue to digital TV and radio by 2015.

The Government will develop a “socially-important package of channels” obligatory for free or nominal-fee transmission for the population via all platforms, or in other words a package of must-carry programmes. In TV it will consist of a national news channel, one or two national infotainment channels, a national channel on cultural life, a national channel for children, a national sports channel, and a regional channel to cover events taking place in a particular province. In radio the package will consist of the state-run national channels “Radio Russia”, “Yunost” (Youth), “Mayak” (infotainment), as well as a regional channel in each province. The Government will cover the costs of providing such a transmission. Delivery of all other channels will be regulated by market relations.

The Concept confirms an earlier decision of the Government (of 25 May 2004) that digital TV in Russia will be based on the European standard DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting), while the standard of compression will be MPEG-4 and higher. DRM will be the standard for digital radio.

It is planned that the infrastructure and networks necessary to develop digital TV and radio will be built at the expense of the communication companies, while the government takes the burden to work out the legislative basis for such development. This will consist of drafting amendments to three statutes (on licensing, on communications, and on the mass media), as well as issuing a set of governmental ordinances.