#5 - JRL 7070
BBC Monitoring
New deputy chief at Russia's NTV hints at return of
"old hands"
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 18 Feb 03
The new deputy director-general of NTV, Aleksandr Gerasimov, has returned to the station he left along with Yevgeniy Kiselev and the majority of the journalistic staff in 2001. He told the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta that now he is back with the company he did not rule out the return of some of the "old hands", including those who joined Kiselev at TV6 and then TVS. The following is the text of the report published by the paper on 18 February:
A new deputy director-general for news output was introduced to the NTV production staff yesterday. He is Aleksandr Gerasimov, a long-serving television man who until a few days ago was in charge of news and current affairs broadcasting at Ren TV. Recently Tatyana Mitkova [head of news at NTV] and Grigoriy Krichevskiy [TVS executive] were asked to become Nikolay Senkevich's [new head of NTV] deputy, but declined the job. It is possible that Gerasimov's arrival at NTV will finally resolve the long-running conflict at the television channel, especially as he worked there before from 1993 to 2001, first as a commentator and then as deputy director-general of the company. When Boris Jordan came to NTV, Aleksandr Gerasimov left the company along with a section of the production staff, because he disagreed with the new management's news policy. Following his presentation to the staff, Aleksandr Gerasimov gave an interview to Nezavisimaya Gazeta's correspondent.
[Correspondent] Aleksandr Anatolyevich, how have the NTV staff received your appointment?
[Gerasimov] My view is somewhat subjective. It seemed to me that my arrival at the channel was greeted calmly.
[Correspondent] Have you had a chance to talk with any of your colleagues yet?
[Gerasimov] Yes, I've met Tanya Mitkova and briefly with Lenya Parfenov.
[Correspondent] What will you be doing in the immediate future?
[Gerasimov] A lot of water has flowed under the bridge and a lot of things have changed at NTV. Right now I have to get up to speed with what is going on here.
[Correspondent] Will you be choosing your own team, and will old hands be coming back?
[Gerasimov] I don't rule that out. A lot of good journalists were forced to leave NTV in April 2001.
[Correspondent] So it is quite possible that you could call in people from TVS?
[Gerasimov] I don't think that even that possibility is ruled out.