Republic

Ways to improve the performance of interstate TV and radio company Mir after the transition to full-scale TV and radio broadcasting across the Commonwealth of Independent States caused lively discussions at a session of the Council of CIS member-states’ plenipotentiaries to CIS charter and other bodies in Minsk. Mir President Radik Batyrshin remarked that Mir should become a TV channel with a rich informational component, high social responsibilities. It should act for the benefit of all shareholders and should not discriminate the viewership according to geographical differences. In order to reach these goals as from February 1, 2008 the number of information programmes the channel offers will increase by 30% while the number of shows for kids will triple. The cultural and country lore components will be beefed up. To make it possible, the company together with the Interstate Foundation for Humanitarian Cooperation worked out several new cycles of programmes, which will be broadcast this year. Besides, the company’s retooling plan has been developed, as the equipment’s deterioration rate currently stands at 70%. There are plans to switch over to multimedia technologies and deploy a powerful web portal. TV and radio company Mir was initially envisaged as a CIS broadcasting authority and a system for sharing video reports about socially important CIS events. However, some countries try to enforce national laws, which demand that at least half of the air time should use the official language of the country. Sociologists believe such steps could decrease the viewership by 3-4 times. According to Radik Batyrshin, TV channel Mir should be immune against it. He suggested legalising Russian as the main broadcasting language of the company. The initiative, however, will not prevent national branches of the company from making programmes in languages used in the CIS member-states. Radik Batyrshin pointed out that every year the company’s funding is cut down by 20% on the average, while the expanding media market entails rising costs for all instruments of TV and radio broadcasting business. TV and radio company Mir includes nine national, four regional branches and representative offices as well as a reporter’s post, with the broadcasting time as large as 20 hours daily. The company uses the satellite ABS-1 to reach the viewership from the Atlantic to the Pacific. By early 2008 Mir’s viewing public totalled 42 million people.