Minister slams Russian TV standards

July 04, 2008 Alexander Avdeyev, the new Russian culture minister appointed two months ago, on Wednesday slammed the quality of national TV channels in his first public address at the State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament. According to Avdeyev, of all the national channels, his ministry is satisfied only with the content on Kultura (Culture), which is not currently available across the whole territory, but should become so after a switch to digital television scheduled for 2011. Currently, the federal government controls, directly or indirectly, the First Channel, Rossiya, NTV, Sport and Kultura (respectively, the first, second, third, seventh and twelfth channels in terms of the size of audiences).

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