Gazprom-Media

Gazprom-Media is a Russian media holding company. Gazprom-Media was established in January 1998 as a subsidiary of Gazprom Media Holdings. It and its parent company are subsidiaries of Gazprom, a large Russian company founded in 1989, which carries on the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of natural gas. The group owns more than 38 television channels and 10 radio stations. History In 2000 with pressure from Mikhail Lesin, Gazprom-Media acquired NTV, the only nationwide state-independent television in Russia at the time, as well as other media assets of Vladimir Gusinsky's Media Most group including the satellite operator NTV-plus, TNT-Teleset, the radio station Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvy), and the (Семь дней) publishing house, which raised a major controversy and resulted in considerable changes in their editorial policy. After Gazprom-Media took over "Media Most" in 2000, Gazprom-Media received Filipp Bobkov's entire former KGB 5th directorate (Political police) including all of its employees which was in the thousands, its database and the Bobkov founded security service that was accused of attempting an assassination in 1994 of Boris Berezovsky. The entire archive of 5th KGB Main Directorate was taken to Media-Most. In 2000, Bobkov created the Institute for Strategic Assessments and Analysis (ISOA), a joint stock company (JSC), as a think tank successor to "Media Most"'s security department with the former head of KGB in Azerbaijan (, b. born November 27, 1942 Quba, Azerbaijan) the director of ISOA and from 2001 to 2002 was chairman of the board. In 2005, Gazprom-Media purchased Izvestia, a leading nationwide newspaper. In May 2008, Sergei Fursenko's gained a 50.1% stake in Izvestia.