As far as television is concerned, the much-publicized privatization of Ostankino will likely be postponed. In the same speech, Yeltsin promised that a decree on Ostankino would be forthcoming, but as yet there has been no news. Coverage of events such as the war in Chechnya will likely be composed with one ear cocked to the internal censor that all Soviet journalists carried with them in the old days. It's very hard to do investigative reporting. Journalists are paid off for writing articles.
Russian media is the only institution in Russia now that is truly democratic.
The coverage of events in Chechnya was the first time that a Russian audience could see the real situation - not like it was during this artificial war in Afghanistan, where people didn't see what was really going on. Russian Public Television was going to begin on the first of April with a completely new structure - privatized, with the state having 51 percent of the shares and the remaining 49 percent apportioned among shareholders. Ostankino established a company called Reklama-Holding to impose unified control over advertising. But advertising is still sold through middlemen, through advertising companies that routinely and legally keep 50 percent of the proceeds. They were trying to figure out a way to break that hold and get the money going into the pockets of Russian Public Television.