TVC Had No Time for the Mayoral Candidates Everyone Is Ready for the Debates Except Sergei Sobyanin
The TV channels "Moscow 24" and "Moscow Trust," which the Moscow City Election Commission (MGIK) included on the list for providing free campaign airtime to candidates for mayor of Moscow, are preparing to hold debates. All candidates except acting mayor Sergei Sobyanin have said they are ready to take part. Alexei Navalny’s campaign headquarters intends to push for free airtime on TVC, which receives "money from the city budget." Print media were not included on the MGIK list. ... It is worth noting that the list did not include the TV channel "TV Center" (TVC), which belongs to the Moscow city government. Igor Yeremin, head of TVC’s legal directorate, explained to Kommersant that "Moscow’s electoral code requires only regional television and radio companies to provide airtime": "And since TV Center is a nationwide company, we are not obliged to provide free airtime." Alexei Navalny, the RPR–PARNAS candidate, intends to seek TV Center’s inclusion on the list for free campaign airtime, since it also "receives money from the city budget." "Our lawyers are dealing with this issue now," his campaign chief Leonid Volkov told Kommersant. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2239311 Wonderful. TVC, which belongs to the Moscow city government, has no intention of providing time for debates, because they’re not some kind of "regional" broadcaster—they’re a full-fledged "nationwide" one. Wow. How impressive. A big, independent, "nationwide" television company. Apparently it really doesn’t owe us anything. It sells advertising all over the country. A successful business built by professionals. So let’s take a look at how justified this nationwide swagger really is—and who is paying for the whole show:
http://www.tvc.ru/files/Documents/GodovoyOtchet2011.doc In* 2011, the channel received 2.7 billion rubles in sales revenue and posted a loss of 3.1 billion rubles (covered by the company primarily through a 3.2 billion ruble subsidy from the Moscow city government). The channel has not yet reported for last year. TVC’s subsidies from the city budget in 2012 and 2013 were the same amount—just over 2 billion rubles each year.* http://www.vedomosti.ru/companies/news/11390001/tvc_stal_obyazatelnym#ixzz2ZqnMZSms So in direct subsidies alone, Muscovites paid these cool TV professionals 7.2 billion rubles over the last three years. Or roughly 7.***2 million rubles a day. One ruble per voter. So it turns out that in my family of four, there are two voters, and we are being charged about 60*** rubles a month ***for the "great privilege" of TVC’s existence. I can think of better ways to spend 60 rubles a month, and buying a diamond tie brooch for some TV host like Pushkov (Alexei Pushkov, a Russian television presenter and politician) ranks pretty low on my list of priorities. And that’s only direct subsidies/transfers from the budget. I’m sure that if you add up discounted rent, various perks, and purchases of "social advertising," the figures would rise significantly. And you ask why people should go vote. That’s exactly why: to remove from power the brazen people who live lavishly on our money and then contemptuously tell us: we owe you nothing.