 The list of bidders included:
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As expected, the main battle was between the two key rivals – DTV itself, and Channel Five, which represented the interests of the leading federal network – First Channel.
At around 1600 on Wednesday director general of First Channel Konstantin Ernst arrived at the Press Ministry and immediately headed to Mikhail Lesin’s office. Two hours later he emerged before the journalists waiting for him in the corridor and was forced to answer their questions as to what he had been doing in the minister’s office.
The First Channel director could not deny Lesin was a close acquaintance, but explained that he had come to Lesin’s office merely to while away the time, awaiting the commission’s decision, to read papers, and not to lobby the interests of the bidder that he controls, as might have been presumed. The journalists also noticed that Mikhail Lesin was not attending the commission’s session – the FTC was deciding on regional frequencies in his absence.
It is worth noting that namely First Channel was considered the favourite to win the bid after Ernst officially announced his intention of taking part. Besides, the fact that DTV’s licence was not renewed automatically suggested the Press Ministry wished to deprive MTG of the licence for good.
The Press Ministry’s officials knew perfectly well that the channel had committed violations for which it had been warned about when it was still called Darial-TV and was controlled by Arkadiy Vainer and his daughter Natalia Darialov, and that the new owner – the MTG group – had nothing to do with it.
One can understand how upset MTG was, having paid several million dollars for the licence and facing the prospect of losing it. At the same time, when purchasing Darial-TV, MTG had the chance to thoroughly study all the papers concerning the state of affairs in the company.
In the meantime, the outcome of the tender seemed pre-determined. Most media observers assumed that First Channel would undoubtedly win the package. Initially, the tender was to be held on November 27, but was cancelled, according to the official version, after ''none of the concepts presented by the bidders had gathered the necessary number of votes''.
In truth, back in November Mikhail Lesin changed the voting procedures and it just so happened that none of the participants scored enough. Usually, the commission members are asked to choose several concepts presented by bidders, but at that time the minister demanded that each member should name only one concept.
The new tender was scheduled for February 26 this year, but was again cancelled, because Lesin had fallen ill. Observers surmised the tender was cancelled because the minister’s absence could have spoiled First Channel’s chances. The bid was re-scheduled again, this time for March 5, by which time Lesin had already recovered from his illness and had even had time to meet Vladimir Putin. It seemed certain that Konstantin Ernst would get what he wanted.
It wasn’t until around 2100 on Wednesday evening that the surprising decision was made public. A member of the federal tender commission, Manana Aslamazyan, announced that DTV (i.e. MTG) had won the tender. Those present greeted the commission’s decision with applause. Mikhail Lesin refused to comment on the outcome of the bid. Aslamazyan only said: ''I hope that no one will ever find out, how and why the commission members voted the way they did.''
The MTG media group has recently launched a new ''Seven channels in one'' project and has promised to put up $35 million in the channel’s development over the next 3 years.
06 МАРТА 15:14
