New Operators Clean House at Russia’s Independent NTV

The self-proclaimed new managers of NTV, Russia’s only nationwide independent television network, today changed the security guards, fired journalists who rejected their authority and took the station off the air in the midst of the morning news broadcast.

The first real sign of the impact of the seizure of NTV’s airwaves came at 8:06 a.m., when anchor Andrei Norkin was cut off in midsentence as he attempted to explain what had happened when the new managers arrived.

The managers are led by American financier Boris Jordan, who has warned banks not to deal with the channel until he can move in as the station’s head and complete a takeover by the state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom.

Shortly before dawn, a so-called commission on the transfer of property arrived to take control, NTV correspondent Alexei Kondulukov said by telephone from inside the main Ostankino television tower in Moscow.

NTV went on at 8:01 a.m. in Moscow, with footage of journalists milling around trying to figure out what to do. Norkin was reading a news broadcast when the station went off the air.

Anchor Marianna Maximovskaya told the independent Echo of Moscow radio station--which belongs to NTV’s parent company, Media-Most--that she had been fired. She and others later signed a statement saying they were leaving the station.

Gazprom, a major shareholder and creditor in NTV, voted out the station’s management April 3, a move that many of the independent network’s employees consider illegal.

NTV claims that the Kremlin is behind the takeover of the feisty station, which has provided some of most critical coverage in Russia of the war in the separatist republic of Chechnya.

A Moscow court is to hold hearings in May on the validity of Jordan’s appointment.