Ownership
Until 1 July 2005 the channel belonged to its founder Irena Lesnevskaya and her son (30%) and the Russian utility RAO UES headed by Anatoly Chubais. In 2005 Bertelsmann's ''RTL Group, RTL'' bought 30% of REN TV with steel maker Severstal and oil and natural gas company Surgutneftegaz each buying 35%. Severstal's Alexey Germanovich on 18 December 2006 ceded the chairperson of REN TV's board to Lyubov Sovershaeva, President Vladimir Putin's former deputy envoy to the North-West federal okrug and chairperson of the board at ABRos Investments, a subsidiary of St Petersburg's Russia bank. ABRos had bought a considerable stake in REN. The bank, whose chairman, Yury Kovalchuk, was a close friend of President Vladimir Putin, owned 38% of its home town's Channel 5 (Russia), TRK Petersburg TV channel – and was likely to buy more of that company, analysts had told 19 December 2006's Kommersant, Kommersant-daily. REN TV and TRK Petersburg would merge into a single media holding, though they would operate independently, industry observers had told the daily. Russian media had reported that oil and gas group Surgutneftegaz had sold its stake in the channel to ABRos, which had increased its stake in the media company from 45% to 70%. '[T]here are indications that Bertelsmann was interested in selling up, after about 18 months in the Russian TV market,' the broadcasting news website added. Currently National Media Group owns 82%, and Russian state oil company Gazprom subsidiary SOGAZ owns 18%.Logos
News coverage
In November 2005 REN TV fired Olga Romanova (news anchor), Olga Romanova, the anchor of its daily ''24'' news flagship. Despite much publicity around the incident, her independent manner of reporting was continued by Marianna Maksimovskaya, formerly an anchor and news presenter for Vladimir Gusinsky's NTV (Russia), NTV Station. Maksimovskaya was in charge of news broadcasts on REN TV until 2014, when she was fired. Due to her activities, the channel was arguably Russia's only major TV outlet with liberal views, discussing the problem of state censorship and showing interviews with leaders of the political fringe (including The Other Russia (coalition), Other Russia). Prior to her departure from the channel, Romanova had told the Radio Free Europe on 25 November 2005 that the channel's head, Alexander Ordzhonikidze had pulled two recent stories for, she felt, political reasons. One censored item had covered an investigation into Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov's son's involvement in a road accident in which a woman died. Romanova spoken about the alleged censorship on Echo of Moscow, Ekho Moskvy radio on 23 November 2005 – and the next day Ordzhonikidze barred from entering the channel's building. A second 'banned item had been about the building in central Moscow of a US$15 million church and clock tower by Zurab Tsereteli, the International Press Institute noted in its report on 2005. Ordzhonikidze said in an interview for Echo of Moscow radio station that REN's news output had low ratings and management had decided to try other anchors on the evening newscasts. "Besides, it's hard for one person to anchor all the nightly newscasts every day of the week. [They] might just feel ill," he had added. In solidarity with Romanova, several of her journalist colleagues quit the channel in December 2005. Head of news and deputy channel director, Yelena Fedorova, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Liberty's Russian Service (''Radio Svoboda'') why she had resigned. "A lot of content-related directives have passed by me. As a journalist, I cannot put up with that, I cannot live with that," she told state news agency RIA Novosti on 5 December 2005. Editor Olga Shorina and producer Tatyana Kolokova were also planning to leave the channel because, they said, it was impossible to perform their professional duties.Scheduled content
The company which produced several high-profile feature films, notably the Golden Lion-winning ''The Return (2003 film), Vozvrashcheniye'' in 2003, is still a production house and has made much of the network's scheduled content, including numerous TV series: *''Soldiers'' (russian: Солдаты), following recruits drafted into the Russian Ground Forces, Russian Army for their mandatory year of military service. 16 seasons . *''Students'' (russian: Студенты), following the social lives of several Moscow University for the Humanities students. (2005-2006) *''Tourists'' (russian: Туристы), following several couples on vacation on a beach resort in Turkey. (2005) List of television series, studio taken Fox Broadcasting Company, FOX and Sony Pictures Television. REN also was showing purchased programming, including: *''Prison Break'' (as ''Побег'') since September 4, 2006 *''Family Guy'' (as ''Гриффины'') *''Friends'' (as ''Друзья'') *''M*A*S*H (TV series), M*A*S*H'' (as ''МЭШ'') *''My Name Is Earl'' (as ''Меня зовут Эрл'') since 2006 *''Supernatural (U.S. TV series), Supernatural'' (as ''Сверхъестественное'') since September 2006 *''The 4400'' (as ''4400'') since November 26, 2006 *''The Simpsons'' (as ''Симпсоны'') *''The X-Files'' (as ''Секретные материалы'') *''Jetix'', children's adventure programming from The Walt Disney Company, Disney Current purchased/licensed programming: *''Persons Unknown (TV series), Persons Unknown'' (as ''Неизвестные лица'') since November 2012 *''Top Gear Russia'' (russian: Top Gear: Русская версия, italic=yes) since February 22, 2009 Other shows include at the moment: * Граница Времени (The Edge of Time) - self-produced science fiction series, airs from 2015Criticism
REN TV has been accused of combining pieces of scientific shows and interviews to produce pseudoscientific "documentaries". In 2015, REN TV's documentaries were awarded ''"the most harmful pseudoscientific project (for spreading of myths, delusions and superstitions)"'' antiprize by the Ministry of Education and Science (Russia), Ministry of Education and Science for propaganda of conspiracy theories and mistrust for science.References
External links
* {{Authority control REN TV, Mass media companies of France Mass media companies of Russia Companies based in Paris Companies based in Moscow Russian-language television stations in Russia Television channels and stations established in 1997 1997 establishments in Russia