Boris Jordan declares that he has received full authority to manage the financial activities of NTV

Gazprom-Media representative Boris Jordan believes that within “four to five days” the new management of the television company will be able to begin fulfilling their duties.

He said that the day before he received the right to work in Moscow from the Federal Migration Service. “I also received the seal and full authority to manage the financial activities of the NTV company,” he added. According to Boris Jordan, all relevant banks have already been informed that from today all payments, “primarily employee salaries,” can only be made with his signature. In addition, Boris Jordan believes that he has received the right to sign for the broadcast of NTV's daily signal.

Boris Jordan said that he has already been registered as the general director of NTV and intends to start working at the television company on Monday. According to Jordan, after he takes up his duties, he intends to discuss with the television company the issue of organizing the NTV editorial board.

He said that this idea was put forward by employees of the television company with whom he was negotiating. Also, at the suggestion of NTV journalists, Boris Jordan is ready, according to him, to discuss the issue of an alternative candidacy for the company's editor-in-chief.

As you know, at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders of the television company, held at the initiative of Gazprom-Media on April 3, which the NTV staff does not recognize, Vladimir Kulistikov, chairman of the board of RIA Vesti, was appointed to the position of editor-in-chief of NTV. However, according to Boris Jordan, Kulistikov expressed his readiness to leave this post if the candidacy of editor-in-chief proposed by the team finds support from the new management of the company and its shareholders.

At the same time, Boris Jordan emphasized that Vladimir Kulistikov will remain at NTV in any case and, if he is not editor-in-chief, he will become his deputy.

At the same time, Jordan said that today he sent a letter to Evgeny Kiselev, in which he reminded that he bears “personal responsibility” for not allowing the new management to manage the company. In these conditions, Kiselev, according to Jordan, is responsible “for all NTV assets, and if something happens to the archives or any property of the company, it will be his personal responsibility.”

Addressing NTV employees, Boris Jordan said: “I really ask that the company continue its professional activities. I really ask that the correspondents do not leave their jobs.” At the same time, he said that over the past week he “had quite a lot of meetings” with correspondents, cameramen and other representatives of NTV.

According to Boris Jordan, it will take about six months to make the television company profitable. “Within six months we can restructure the channel’s debt and bring the company to profit,” Boris Jordan said on Friday. He believes that the TV channel’s unprofitability is “not the fault of the TV company’s programming policy, but the financial management of Media-Most.”

Moreover, Jordan is generally “satisfied with the professional activities of the channel.” But “I’m not happy when a television company is manipulated by one shareholder, including its economic activities.”

Commenting on his first steps as general director of NTV, Boris Jordan announced his intention to “return as much as possible the employees who left the channel.” However, he is not going to offer any “increased conditions”.

In addition, Jordan plans to “deal with the issues of loans to journalists, which they received from various shareholders of the television company.” The new general director intends to “transfer all these loans to NTV” so that “none of the shareholders can influence” the TV channel. Jordan was unable to clarify the progress of negotiations between the shareholders of the television company and potential Western investors. “I heard that it could be Turner, Murdoch or representatives of some German companies,” he admitted. At the same time, Boris Jordan is interested in the TV channel having an international strategic investor. He also intends to assess in the near future the amount of funds remaining in the television company's accounts. If these funds are not enough to manage NTV, he is ready to attract “a syndicated loan in the amount of 25 to 30 million dollars” from a number of banks.

Characterizing the financial condition of NTV, Jordan said that the channel “has not provided an audit to shareholders for two years” and also “has no budgets at all.” Moreover, according to Jordan, “the television channel takes out loans for future advertising sales,” and the sale of advertising on NTV “is carried out through related companies of Media-Most.”

Jordan says that “over the course of 10 days, I had several dozen people sitting in the waiting room to whom the TV channel owes money.” In particular, according to him, NTV did not pay for licenses, for the services of drivers, and the necessary amounts were not paid to VGTRK. “The producers of the TV program “Dolls” have not been paid since November,” Jordan claims. Speaking about the conflict on NTV, the new general director assured that if the court declares the decision of the board of shareholders of April 3 illegal, then he, “as a person who lives by the laws,” will recognize the court’s decision and will not “hold on to his place.”

At the same time, he noted that he “has every right to enter NTV, including with the police.” “I consider this a hopeless solution to the issue,” Boris Jordan emphasized.