TV Centre (
Russian: ТВ Центр,
romanized: TV Tsentr; formerly abbreviated as ТВЦ, TVC or ТВЦ-Москва, TVC-Moskva - "TVC Moscow") is a Russian
public television station with the fourth largest coverage area in Russia, after
Channel One,
Russia-1 and
NTV. It is owned by the administration of the city of
Moscow and is dedicated to programming that highlights various aspects of Moscow life.[1] The channel airs across Russian territory.
Boris Vishnyak was appointed as the TV Centre's general director,[13] Stanislav Arkhipov became the channel's producer.[14]Sergey Cheskidov headed the editorial board of sports programs.[15]
The channel first broadcast only in Moscow,
Moscow Region, and
Ryazan.[16] In January 1998, TV Centre started broadcasting in
Saint Petersburg as well.[11] A year later, in 1999, the channel was present in 36 out of 89 Russian regions, thus covering around 33% of the Russian territory.[17]
In 1998, the channel began the construction of its own building. The office's erection was completed in 2003.[18]
On September 6, 1999, the channel changed its logo and abbreviated its name to TVC.[19] The changes took place due to a new management team headed by Konstantin Likutov.[20] Under his direction, in 1999–2000, the channel's ratings were almost equal to those of its competitors. Furthermore, the ratings of TV Centre's news program
Sobytya (Events) [
ru] sometimes outnumbered rates of some informational programs of bigger channels, including, for instance, the
Vesti news.[21]
In February 2000,
Oleg Poptsov [
ru] was elected president of TVC.[22] On May 20, 2000, the channel's
broadcast license expired. As a result, TVC was broadcasting with a temporary permit.[23][24] At the same time, Russian
Minister of Press and Mass Media,
Mikhail Lesin, announced a tender for TVC's TV frequencies, which the channel eventually won.[25] The license was prolonged for another 5 years, until the spring of 2005.[26]
In September 2001,
Pavel Kasparov [
ru] was appointed the channel's general director (he held this position until 2004).[27] Under his leadership, TVC introduced an original color scheme. The channel's main color changed four times during the day at 6am, 11am, 6pm, and 12am. In the morning all backgrounds and studios were colored in yellow, in the afternoon the channel's theme was green, in the evening it switched to blue, and at night - red. In such a manner, as the channel's designers reported, 24 hours of TVC's broadcasting were compared with a full day cycle.[28]
On January 1, 2003, TVC launched a subsidiary channel, "Moscow - Open World". It was stated that the new channel was served as an unofficial intermediary for transmitting TVC's programs to Russian
expatriate, residing in
Europe,
Asia, and
North Africa.[29]
In 2005, the channel opened its official international branch - TVCI (TV Center International) - that broadcast TVC's programs worldwide.[30] On December of the same year, TVC Board of Directors removed Poptsov from his post of the channel's president and assigned
Alexander Ponomarev [
ru] as general director.[31] The former linked the dismissal to his documentary about president
Vladimir Putin, which had been previously aired on TVC.[32][33] By the time Oleg Poptsov had to step down, TVC was referred to as a "channel of Moscow pensioners" as the majority of its regular audience were people aged over 55 years. Hence, Alexander Ponomarev's team worked on attracting middle-aged viewers living in Russian regions.[34][35] To achieve this goal, in August 2006, the channel returned to its original name ("TV Centre") and updated its logo and design. Furthermore, TV Centre switched to 24-hour broadcasting.[36][37]
2012–2022
On October 24, 2012, Yulia Bystritskaya (née Rakcheyeva) - previously the vice general director of
VGTRK, became TV Centre's general directors of Alexander Ponomaryov.[38] On December 14 of the same year, the channel was included in the
second multiplex of digital terrestrial television.[39]
On April 20, 2013, TV Centre became a federal TV channel by a
presidential decree and was included in the first multiplex of digital television.[40] As a result, a month later, the channel began broadcasting as a part of the first multiplex in several Russian regions (namely, the
Tyumen and
Altai regions), where this system was available by that time.[41][42] On December 31, 2014, TV Centre terminate the contract with the regional partners in order to organize a unified system of TV broadcasting.[43]
In 2016, TV Centre opened its new branch - "Central Television" - to air the channel's selected entertainment and journalistic programs.[45]
In June 2017, the channel announced that it would switch to
high-definition broadcasting. The switch happened three years later, in February 2020, and
Rostelecom was the digital provider to transmit TV Centre in an HD quality.[46]
On June 3, 2022, the international version of TV Centre was disconnected from broadcasting in Europe due to the Russian aggression in Ukraine.[5]
Criticism
In 2017, Russian TV journalist
Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr. wrote in one of his articles that he considers TV Center to be the weakest channel, calling it provincial. He argued this by the lack of a concept: after the “major” federal news, they could show a “everyday” local story; on different days, documentaries and programs broadcasting opposing opinions could also coexist on the air. He also criticized the design of the channel and the presence of presenters in the staff, "...whose time has already passed".[49]
In the 2000s, under the leadership of Oleg Poptsov, the channel was also often criticized for its inconsistency with the realities of modern television broadcasting and for oversaturating the broadcast network with a large number of outdated TV programs.[50][51]
Right to know: Socio-political talk show. The flagship project of the channel, which faced a different perspective on the most pressing question of the week. Protagonist ask questions editors of leading Russian mass media (2014–present).
Educational
Life factor: Information TV magazine devoted to the problems of people with disabilities (2007–present).
^Антонина Крюкова (June 26, 1997).
"ЕЩЕ ОДИН НОВЫЙ НАЧАЛЬНИК" (in Russian). saturday.ng.ru. Archived from
the original on February 22, 2005. Retrieved August 31, 2022.