U -turn for double continuous

RBC can get a new owner and radically change the editorial policy

The possible sale of RBC, which coincided with the completion of the powers of Tatyana Lysova as the editor -in -chief of Vedomosti, completes the history of the cleaning of the Russian media market.

The last large independent editions in the country cease to exist, and from now on, no market exists anymore. We can talk at best about the mediaarchipel - scattered projects, which will continue to try to engage in professional journalism, and not propaganda. But these forces are clearly not enough to supply both society and the authorities with quality information.

Russia is part of the presidential campaign, street mobilization of the opposition and the era of heavy economic reforms blinded. Instead of discussing problems, it is ordered to experience loyalty.

In December last year, the Moscow Arbitration Court granted Rosneft’s lawsuit against RBC media holding, however, reducing the amount of compensation by about 8 thousand times - from 3.1 billion to 390 thousand rubles. Sichin was then not allowed to defeat the enemy during a direct attack, but it was clear that the story would not end there. The pressure on the owner of the holding Mikhail Prokhorov continued, and the preservation of RBC as an economic asset meant only that his pre -sale preparation began. If the RBC was destroyed economically, even if after the dispersal of the team of journalists-investigators, led by Elizabeth of the Ossetian media holding, is a problem, then it remained only to strangle it in his arms. Private media business should be cleaned as part of a private transaction - one independent businessman with another.

According to several sources at once, Grigory Berezkin, the head of the ESN group, who already owned large media actures - in particular, the Komsomolskaya Pravda and the Metro Publishing House, was selected for the role of a private investor, whose proposal, Prokhorov, who has already owned the proposal. The amount of the transaction can amount to about $ 50 million, which is negligible for the structure of the scale of RBC, pricing here is not distinguished by market, but political considerations. If RBC is sold for that kind of money, it will look like Prokhorov’s punishment for the game in the holding independent editorial policy in previous years. Recall that the key problem for the publication was the “intersection of a double continuous” - such a term was proposed by the new leadership of RBC in the summer of 2016 at a meeting with the team. The intersection understood investigations against Putin's close associates and alleged members of his family.

Berezkina, according to Vedomosti, is now in the Office of the Baltic Media Group, which was associated with the interests of Yuri Kovalchuk ten years ago. So RBC may begin the drift in the direction of the last “old friends” surrounded by President Putin. After many members of the Lake Cooperative in recent years have moved away from the president, Kovalchuki continue to enjoy his trust.

As a potential head of RBC, the new owner is called Alexei Abakumov, deputy director of the Rumedia group, which controls, in particular, the Business FM radio station. Abakumov’s asset has the position of deputy director of the REN TV and director of Radio of Russia as part of the VGTRK. The experience of the same REN TV shows that the new owners do not risk immediately changing the editorial policy, since the “opposition” is considered at first as the key competitive advantage of the media.

But over time, the problem of holding the old audience fades into the background, the first is loyalty. And the times are now different: perhaps RBC in the very near future will be reformatted for new tasks facing the “responsible” and “patriotic” media in the context of the presidential election.

"National Media Group" (NMG): What is it?
“National Media Group” was born nine years ago as a result of the merger of the media assets of the Bank “Russia” Yuri Kovalchuk, Alexei Mordashov and the Sogaz insurance group. The media giant continues the case of the collector of Russian media, one by one digesting independent media.

To date, the media group owns 25% of Channel One, 72.4% - the Fifth channel and 82% of REN TV. NMG print media are represented by Izvestia (73.2%), Sport-Express (25%) and Metro-Petersburg (100%). Also, NMG is the owner of a 100% package of the Russian News Service radio station, which in July 2016 with a light hand of the new owners changed the name to Life Sound. In March 2016, more than 2500 people worked in the media group.

The media group controls 20% of the paid TV market in Russia: in addition to 11 Discovery Networks channels, controls the Turner BroadCasting System channels. Which allows NMG to control domestic versions of Eurosport, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network and CNN International.

Since 2014, the Board of Directors of the media group is headed by the ex-deputy of the State Duma Alina Kabaeva. It is also the head of the board of directors of the founder of the newspaper Sport-Express, acquired by the NMG in April 2016. The post of general director of the National Media Group is held by Olga Paskin, who previously worked in the Gazprom-Media holding, and before that, vice president for the corporate development of Prof Media holding Vladimir Potanin.

The Spark states that in 2015 the revenue of the NMG amounted to 1.6 billion rubles, and the net profit - 539 million. The company's assets as of the end of March 2016, RAEX, estimates the international rating agency at 16.5 billion rubles.

2016 for the NMG went under a sign of merging with state media holdings. A landmark event for the market was the birth of LLC National Advertising Alliance (NRA) in the summer of 2016. The structure has become a united company for the sale of advertising for NMG, VGTRK, Channel One and Gazprom-Media. Each of the participants received a share of 25%. The structure will become a trading platform that should resist the decline in the advertising market, its creators say.

Earlier, they tried to create a general seller of advertising on the basis of the company "Video Internet (VI), in 2010 sold to the structures of Russia" Russia "Yuri Kovalchuk, Surgutneftegaz and the owner of Severstali Alexei Mordashov. By the time of the creation of the National Advertising Alliance, the largest television seller in the country served 13 federal airtime channels. According to RBC in 2014, 103.87 billion rubles passed through the VI, which at that time amounted to at least 65% of the total costs for television and Russia.

In March 2017, the National Media Group announced the first rebranding in its entire history of existence. According to the developers, the new logo will be made in the colors of the Russian tricolor, "emphasizing the continuity in the development of the national media market." Thus, the authors intend to convey the main features of the brand, among which are “leadership and visionary view of the industry”.

It is worth noting that the enlargement of the National Media Group did not cause interest from the FAS - the antimonopoly department carried out the last check in November 2012, and it was planned.

Alisa Kustikova