Dispirited Media Mogul Ready to Sell Out of NTV

A Russian media magnate who lost the jewels of his empire but won his freedom in the past few days declared his independent national television network dead Thursday and said he will sell his share to the highest bidder.

Once the energy company Gazprom wrested control of NTV last weekend, tycoon Vladimir A. Gusinsky said, the network lost its identity.

Sevodnya, the flagship daily newspaper of Gusinsky’s Media-Most company, was shut down Monday. And Itogi, his liberal weekly magazine, became “an empty shell” after the firings Tuesday of its editor and staff, he said.

Ironically, the opponents of Gusinsky who took control of the TV network were using the same words about it, claiming he had left a shell with few real assets.

NTV was Russia’s only independent national network and, like Sevodnya and Itogi, riled the Kremlin with its critical reporting.

Speaking by phone from his villa in Spain, Gusinsky expressed disdain for what the network has become and declared that it no longer matters to whom he sells his share--even if it is to the partially state-owned Gazprom, which ousted him from control.

“This television company has ceased to be the television company I helped create,” he mourned. “It has stopped being interesting to me. It is all very, very sad.”

Gusinsky predicted that the Russian authorities’ campaign against him will not end until the remains of his empire are destroyed and his credibility is ruined.

But he had one big victory Thursday: Spanish state prosecutor Eduardo Fungairino announced that he will not appeal a court decision rejecting a request to extradite Gusinsky. The extradition would have landed the businessman back in a Russian prison cell.

Russian prosecutors have charged Gusinsky with embezzlement, an accusation he claims is politically motivated. The businessman, who has been under house arrest on the Spanish Riviera, should become a free man Saturday, the formal deadline for any appeal. But he was pessimistic that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his government will give up their pursuit.

“I don’t believe this process going on against us is over, far from it,” he said. “Let’s put it bluntly: Authorities like those taking shape in Russia now will never leave me and my partners in peace, because we are their opponents.”

In an obvious reference to Putin, a former intelligence agent, Gusinsky said people in power came from the FSB, the main successor to the KGB, “and authorities like this like to finalize problems. For them, finalization means destruction.”

Gusinsky cast doubt on a plan to form a new national network by merging TNT, his regional outlet, with TV-6, a small Moscow station now broadcasting news bulletins put together by former NTV journalists loyal to him. There are no talks about a merger, and Gusinsky said he had no part in the plan.

Lawrence McDonald, a spokesman for American businessman Boris Jordan, who was appointed by Gazprom to run NTV, said Gusinsky’s team had left the company in financial chaos, with some employees going unpaid for months.

He said the producers of “Kukly,” a biting, satirical political puppet show that is a key part of the station’s character, have not been paid since November, a claim confirmed by one producer, Vasily Grigoryev, who stayed with NTV under Gazprom for contractual reasons.

With all eyes on the next edition of “Kukly” as the litmus test for the station’s political independence, Grigoryev promised an aggressive edition this week about media freedom in Russia, portraying Putin as a Chinese leader ordering all the sparrows--symbolizing journalists--to be killed.

“We are not going to change the spirit and the direction of the program. If we feel any threat of censorship, we will react by repeating the previous week’s program in the scheduled time slot,” Grigoryev said.

Gusinsky said it was not the name NTV but the editorial policy and the team of journalists that added up to a respected news product. “They have talent and honest editorial policy, and that is what matters. They go to TV-6 and it will be honest news on TV-6,” he said.

He refused to comment on Jordan’s claim that the network was on a road to bankruptcy, with hundreds of thousands of dollars owed.

Gusinsky said there was “quite a lot of interest” in NTV from various buyers, including an offer from a Ukrainian media tycoon, Vadim Rabinovich, who controls the Era television production company and Stolichnye Novosti publishing house.

He criticized Europe’s muted response to the NTV takeover, arguing that Putin seemed to be following China’s example--economic freedoms coupled with repression of civil rights.