The Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO expresses its concern over developments at the TVS television company.

Changes in the composition of owners and leadership of TVS, reported by a number of the mass media, will lead to a situation where TVS will be transformed into a de facto state-owned company. This is last federal television channel to have managed to avoid direct or complete control of the authorities.

Such a step will lead to a monopoly on the information transmitted to Russia’s citizens. It is especially dangerous on the threshold of the parliamentary and presidential elections, when television is transformed into the main source of information on the competing political forces.

The developments at NTV channel, then at TV6 and now at TVS demonstrate that policies aimed at restricting freedom of speech and creating a single propaganda machine controlled by certain oligarchic clans merged with the state authorities have been maintained in Russia.

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