The Takeover of Russia's NTV
The History Hour
BBC
4.4 • 912 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2017
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
NTV was Russia's only nationwide independent TV station until it was taken over in April 2001. We hear from the head of the station at the time. Plus, Ethiopia's Red Terror; the Katyn massacre during WW2; a breakthrough for disability rights in the US with the 504 sit-in; and Sikh bus drivers in the UK win the right to wear turbans to work.
Photo: Life size puppets of Russian political leaders including President Putin, on the set of NTV's popular satirical television show "Puppets"; June 29, 2000. Credit: Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers/Getty
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, |
| 0:05.2 | the past brought to life by those who were there. |
| 0:08.2 | This week the lies and deception surrounding the Second World War Katine Massacre. |
| 0:13.0 | They were telling us that we are going to join our fathers. |
| 0:18.5 | Of course we knew that it was a lie. |
| 0:20.6 | Plus the horrors of Ethiopia's red terror, a fight for seek rights in Britain in the 1960s and for |
| 0:27.6 | disabled rights in 1970s America. |
| 0:30.0 | I just can't stop smiling and this little line just keeps going through my head. |
| 0:36.0 | We want, we want we win! |
| 0:39.0 | That's all to come. |
| 0:40.0 | But we're going to begin with an event in Russia which has come to be seen as setting the |
| 0:44.5 | seal on President Putin's attitude towards a free press. |
| 0:49.1 | It was in April 2001 that staff at NTV, Russia's only nationwide independent television station, lost their battle for the station's independence. |
| 0:59.0 | Yevgeny Kiseiliev was the head of NTV in 2001, and he's been speaking to Dina Newman. |
| 1:04.4 | When Russia lost independent NTV it was just the first step on the way to |
| 1:11.7 | total loss of independent media. |
| 1:15.0 | NTV had been created by a wealthy businessman, |
| 1:21.0 | Vadim Murgusinski, with the aim of providing independent, though not |
| 1:25.6 | impartial, news, analysis and entertainment. |
| 1:29.5 | N TV shows were creative, innovative and felt like a breath of fresh air after decades of dreary |
| 1:35.3 | Soviet broadcasting. |
| 1:37.3 | But over the years, the station grew increasingly critical, not only of the owner's business |
... |
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