The Press in Russia

BBC brings an overview of Russian press. It reports that the Russian readers today enjoy a much wider variety of titles than they ever did during the Sovier era. However, the circulation rates in Russia with roughly 100 newspapers sold for every 1000 inhabitants are among the lowest in Europe. Furthermore, several influential newspapers in Moscow have been bought up by business groups close to the Kremlin in an apparent effort to establish more control over the media. These efforts, however, may be rather redundant because "as a news medium, the press has been comfortably overtaken by television, which is more popular [and] has far wider reach." And Kremlin's control over Russian television is complete with all the stations broadcasting from Russia being owned by Kremlin friendly groups.