Television
Privately owned stations are often owned by industrial groups either controlled by the State or with close connections to the government so that they can be called semi-state. Both state and private stations can have a national status (broadcasters that reach over 70% of the national territory), or a regional, district or local status. Local partners are often united in bigger networks.
In the 1970s and 1980s, television become the preeminent mass medium. In 1988 approximately 75 million households owned television sets, and an estimated 93 percent of the population watched television. Moscow, the base from which most of the television stations broadcast, transmitted some 90 percent of the country's programs, with the help of more than 350 stations and nearly 1,400 relay facilities.
There are about 15,000 TV transmitters. Development of domestic digital TV transmitters, led within "Multichannel" research program, had already been finished. New domestic digital transmitters have been developed and installed in Nizhniy Novgorod and Saint Petersburg in 2001–2002.
The state public television broadcaster is Pervy kanal (Channel One).
Read more about this topic: Communications In Russia
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials ... despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.”
—Peter Ustinov (b. 1921)
“There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)