REGIONAL TELEVISION BROADCASTING IN THE CONTEXT OF RADICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIETY IN THE 1990s (based on materials from the Komi Republic)
Authors: Popov Alexander A. , Linkova Natalya Yu. 
Published: July 2024

The study of radical transformation of the Russian society remains an urgent task, since the reforms of the late twentieth century had an impact on literally all spheres of public life, including such an important industry as television broadcasting.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the transformations that took place in the regional broadcasting system in the last decade of the twentieth century, basing on the materials of the Komi Republic.

Materials and methods. To achieve this research goal, a wide range of sources was involved and analyzed: the legislation of the USSR, the RSFSR, the Russian Federation and the Komi Republic, decrees and orders of the Head of the Komi Republic, which determined the main directions of state policy in relation to television, including regional, during the period under study. For the results of the study to be representative, resolutions of the congresses of the Komi people, meetings of representatives of national movements of the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia, the founding conference on establishing the All-Russian Association of the Finno-Ugric Peoples, declarations of the I All-Russian Congress of the Finno-Ugric Peoples, also related to the reform of broadcasting, were used. A significant body of sources is represented by documents from the National Archive of the Komi Republic – the STRBC “Komi Gor” Foundation R-1336. A specific and very informative source of this fund is “Microphone folders” with television programs scripts. Materials of the Komi regional periodicals are widely used: republican and city newspapers “Red Banner”, “Youth of the North”, “Republic”, “Usinskaya Nov”, “Iskra”, the magazine “Region”, as well as open information from the Internet.

Research results. The radical reforms of the 1990s led to an imbalance in the national economic complex of the country. An acute shortage of government subsidies and reorganization of the broadcasting structure resulted in the crisis of television as an industry. In a relatively short time, the domestic broadcasting system underwent significant transformations. The reform process took place both in the entire industry as a whole and in each regional studio in particular. The relationship between the government and the media reached a new level. When forming new political, legal and socio-economic market relations, print and electronic media were transformed through self-sufficiency and self-financing. In these conditions, the role of the regional television as the most popular and accessible media for the general population significantly increased. The subject matter of broadcasts, their form, content, manner of presenting the material and conducting programs changed; television became a powerful means of the voting process.

Conclusions. The study gave the opportunity to determine how the change of political and socio-economic course in the country in the 1990s influenced the reform of electronic media. In these conditions, the regional television performed an important function in forming a unified information space. In such a multiethnic region as the Komi Republic, which is traditionally characterized by Russian-Komi bilingualism, the reform process had its own peculiarities. Thus, as a result of radical transformations in the last decade of the twentieth century, television in the Komi Republic developed in three directions: state federal, state regional and commercial (cable) ones.