Everyone went to Channel 11

Saturday's events on NTV reached St. Petersburg. Starting today, the NTV channel will not broadcast local programs - “Wake up, Peter!” and "Today in St. Petersburg." This was the decision of the management of the Gras+ company, which was producing these programs for the NTV television company.
The St. Petersburg branch of NTV has never had a direct relationship with the television company itself. “We were called a branch of NTV nominally,” Andrei Radin, editor-in-chief of the “Today in St. Petersburg” program, told a Kommersant correspondent. In St. Petersburg there is only an NTV office, which does not produce regional news and only produces stories for the main TV channel. The production of St. Petersburg editions on NTV and TNT was carried out by the Moscow company ZAO Gras +. The general director of this company, Alexander Gerasimov, was a member of the board of directors of Media-Most and provided regional broadcasting to the NTV television company.
The project turned out to be subsidized for NTV. There was only enough money to launch broadcasting in St. Petersburg, which happened in 1999. Next in line were Minsk, Samara, Rostov-on-Don. But despite the cost, the former general director of NTV Evgeny Kiselev did not break off relations with Gras +.
On Saturday, Alexander Gerasimov decided to leave the television company along with Evgeny Kiselev and his associates. On the same day, Mr. Gerasimov called St. Petersburg and said that from Monday the city would stop broadcasting on NTV and switch for now to TNT (in St. Petersburg this is channel 11).
Andrei Radin cannot imagine how it is possible to organize work at TNT - Petersburg, since NTV aired five local news releases and the program “Wake up, Peter!” On Channel 11, all the time allocated to the northern capital until today is occupied by the programs “Amateurs’ Club”, “Segodnyachko-Petersburg”, “News on TNT”.
At the same time, Mr. Radin is skeptical about the possibility of St. Petersburg broadcasting on the TV-6 Moscow channel, where, as you know, Mr. Kiselev’s team was invited to work. “It will be like shooting sparrows from a cannon. TV-6 Moscow is practically not caught in St. Petersburg. Accordingly, the degree of coverage of the viewership is minimal,” says Mr. Radin.
Meanwhile, the new management of NTV in Moscow has not yet made itself known in St. Petersburg. This, apparently, will not happen until the organizational problems of the central television channel are resolved. However, we can already assume that events in St. Petersburg will develop according to two scenarios. If the general director of Gazprom-Media Alfred Koch is really concerned about the financial recovery of the NTV company, then he will limit himself to maintaining a small news office in St. Petersburg. If Mr. Koch is carrying out a secret political mission, then St. Petersburg broadcasting will resume on NTV in the near future. True, in this case, there is a possibility that it will be different from the previous one.
OLGA DRAMARETSKAYA
General Director of TNT - Petersburg and the local branch of Gras+ CJSC Andrey Mokrov shared preliminary plans for the future with Kommersant:
— How will the relationship between the St. Petersburg team, which carried out regional broadcasting on NTV, and the new management of the company now be built?
— We will not make programs for local NTV broadcast. On April 12, the contract between NTV and Gras+ ended. After the events that occurred, the management of Gras+ decided not to renew it.
— Nevertheless, do you intend to communicate with the new management of NTV?
- We have a reason to communicate. The NTV company owes Gras+ CJSC for programs produced in February and March. The fate of this debt must be decided.
— How will you behave if you are offered to resume local broadcasting on NTV, but not under the leadership of Gras+, but in some other capacity?
“We will resolve this issue with the entire team involved in producing regional news on NTV.
- What do you intend to do now?
— For now, we will try to broadcast on the TNT - Petersburg TV channel. Starting today, Channel 11's broadcast schedule will include news releases: a 30-minute one at 19.00 and 15-minute ones at 21.15 and 23.30. We will look for opportunities to increase broadcasting on TNT - Petersburg and resume broadcasting on NTV.

Newspaper "Kommersant St. Petersburg" No. 67/P dated April 16, 2001, p. 2

There is no St. Petersburg NTV either