At 25 past midnight on Sunday the 29th of June Russia’s last surviving independent TV station: TVS: ceased broadcasting. Its schedule was interrupted during advertisements, after which a sports channel took over and viewers found themselves watching a repeat screening of a football match between locomotive and rotor. The sports station had been one of the bidders for airtime on the 6th channel after the death in equally suspicious circumstances of TV6. TV remains the main source of information for ¾ of all Russians, an audience the printed media cannot dream of reaching. We have been watching the lingering death of TVS for weeks now- amid financial wranglings, accusations of mismanagement and allegations of state interference. Who flicked the switch? The Press Ministry. The Press Minister: Mikhail Lesin, interviewed by Interfax said that less than a year into its work, TVS has been overcome by a financial, personnel, organizational and regulatory crisis. This crisis, he continued, was an obstacle to TVS working in their viewers’ interests. The replacement- Sport TV- he explained had been chosen due to its’ important social function. He also lamented the fact that Ministry involvement in the affairs of the independent TV station could not lead to a more positive outcome for the station and those who work on it.

Other officials in the Press Ministry have reportedly said that this should serve as an important lesson to other TV companies and beyond. The legality of TVS’ broadcast rights has also recently been called into question by a new court ruling. Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation (MIBC) ran TV6 and had sole broadcasting rights to that frequency at time of liquidation. Media Socium (which ran TVS) won the competition to take over those rights, however a new court ruling overturned a prior one and states that Media Socium won the contract before MIBC was legally entitled to surrender it, and that therefore TVS has no right to broadcast on that frequency. These court rulings and counter rulings resemble more a game of tennis than the rule of law, and all explanations seem designed to obfuscate rather than clarify the already complex situation.

This closing by the state of the only non state TV station is a serious blow to the freedom of speech in the Russian Federation. It is, as observers have commented, the final phase of a campaign to ensure state control over the press, a policy implemented by the authorities since Putin came to power in 2000. First to fall was NTV, prompting public outrage, huge demonstration, petitions and rock concerts in support of the ousted journalists. There too serious financial problems were the official cause of death. NTVs owner- the oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky fled the country and NTV journalists fled to TV6- then owned by another oligarch: Boris Berezovsky. That TV station was also killed off, subsumed into state control by GazProm becoming its majority shareholder. Those journalists whose patience, dedication and powers for self- reinvention survived- moved to TVS where they continued to ask difficult questions, expose corruption in government, business and the military, and cover the continuing and brutal war in Chechnya. At time of demise, few of the original TVS shareholders remain, most have been scared off by political and economic pressure. Mr Evgenii Kiselev, Editor of TVS, Russias answer to Paxman-Humphries and former Persian language teacher at the KGB university said: “ The logic behind their actions is clear, someone right at the top was disturbed by our broadcasts, by what we dared to say. They could’ve shut us down on perfectly banal economic grounds, which is what we expected, but in the end they weighed in with crude, blatantly political moves”. Now there remains in Russia: Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvy) radio station and Novaya Gazeta Newspaper.

These are the only credible surviving independent media groupings. There are of course local publications and pirate radio stations, and the internet affords a degree of independence by default. But self censorship is the norm in this sprawling empire, and few journalists of this caliber are given a voice. Grigory Pasko, an investigative journalist, was sent to prison after exposing further human rights violations by the Russian army in Chechnya and violations by state and private companies of ecological law. Anna Politkovskaya has survived attempts on her life and multiple smear campaigns as a result of her outstanding reporting on Chechnya. Journalists are frequent targets for hired killers. Few local papers have the resources to take on the might of the Russian Authorities, and are cowed by the 3 chilling examples of: NTV TV6 and TVS. Oligarchs with money to burn and grudges against the government also seem thin on the ground. Neither Gusinsky nor Berezovsky had any idealistic love of freedom of speech, but their anti government bias provided a fertile ground for journalists who did work to the highest principles of accuracy, balance and integrity.

The satirical teams who regularly pull ratings higher than any other programme, are off the air, if not for good then for a very long time. Their satire was witty and human, and never pulled its punches. The programme written by Viktor Shenderovich “Free Cheese”, the most recent invention from satirical team that has been repeatedly hounded off air exposed the surreal in the policies of the Russian Authorities, and refused to play along with the new whitewashed media image of Putin. Their integrity and bite, it seems, proved too "inconvenient" to the powers that be. Have their seemingly endless powers for self-reinvention in the teeth of official opposition finally reached their limit? If so, it is a sad day for Russia. This time, the cables were not cut, as last time, nor were the offices stormed by SAS-style Tax police, like the time before that. This time independent media has been silenced through machinations of shareholders at boardmeetings and the covert intervention of the State. It seems the Old Soviets have learnt well from capitalism how much of the old ways it is possible to preserve without the use of the gun, but through controling shares.

Where there is no direct censorship, self censorship is rife- look at the Russian coverage of the ongoing war in Chechnya (what coverage? there is none- and the official line is that there is no war either). TVS was the only station that showed Russia’s diminutive president as shorter than the Olympic athletes he was congratulating.
TVS was the only station to broadcast repeatedly Putins press conference gaffes: his comments on Chechens “mochit’ v sortire” a crude soldiers’ phrase calling for them to be wiped out once and for all, his startling “circumcision/ castration” reply to a Le Monde journalists’ question on the situation in Chechnya. He came to power as a soldier and KGB operative, and has spent recent years reinventing himself with what even our humble spin doctors (ministers of truth) must admire as a remarkeable PR coup.

TVS never let us forget the reality behind this statesman-like façade, their broadcasts pointing out politely and repeatedly that black does not become white on the Presidents’ say so. What future now? It seems the teams that have for years produced such high quality programming have finally been dissipated. Viktor Shenderovich will write another play. Some journalists have given up the profession altogether, such is their disgust for the all pervasive sycophancy governing the press. When some of the TV6 team moved to TVS it seemed that things in Russia were not as bleak as they appeared. Now we know this is true-things are far worse than they seem.