NTV executive director denies reports that the company is unprofitable

NTV executive director Sergei Skvortsov said today that criticism of the TV channel as a loss-making company has no basis.

“After the 1998 crisis, the company was not profitable,” Sergei Skvortsov said today. “But now the advertising market is recovering and the television company’s profits are growing.” According to Skvortsov, the volume of advertising published on NTV accounts for 30% of the entire television advertising market.

Based on the results of the 2000 financial year, the television company paid 111 million rubles in income tax, said the executive director of NTV. In addition, Sergei Skvortsov also denied speculation about a significant decline in the television company’s ratings, which has often been discussed recently. According to his data, “the ratings of NTV programs, primarily information ones, are growing to the detriment of competing television companies.” According to Skvortsov, NTV's main programs continue to be in great demand.

Sergei Skvortsov also stated that “the debt that NTV must pay now does not exist.” According to him, in 1996, Gazprombank issued a loan to NTV in the amount of $40 million, and in 1998, Media-Most bought interest-free bills from NTV for approximately the same amount.

“At one of the boards of directors of NTV, we proposed to equalize these debts and contribute about $40 million from each side to the authorized capital of the television company, but Gazprom decided that this was not in its interests,” Skvortsov noted.

At the same time, the executive director of NTV emphasized that now none of NTV’s shareholders is demanding a refund. Media-Most and Gazprom understand perfectly well that it is almost impossible to return this money at once in the current market situation. Both parties evaluate these debts as a contribution to the future development of the company,” said the executive director of NTV.

And the press secretary of Media-Most, Dmitry Ostalsky, stated that today the Media-Most holding does not have any financial debt to OAO Gazprom.

According to him, Media-Most does not owe Gazprom a penny. The Media-Most representative recalled that in July the deadline for fulfilling Gazprom's guarantee obligations on the loan issued by Credit Suisse First Boston, and Gazprom is seeking, without waiting for the repayment of the debt, to seize the NTV television company.

“Obviously, this is being done only because he is very afraid that Media-Most will find other ways to repay this loan,” says a representative of Media-Most.