Echo of Moscow minority shareholders to appeal board of directors decision to end radio broadcast, close website - Venediktov
MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax) - The minority shareholders of ZAO Ekho Moskvy will appeal the board of directors' decision to end the operations of the Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvy) radio channel and its website, Echo of Moscow Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov said.
"There was no lawbreaking, and this is actually evident from the Prosecutor General's Office letter to Gazprom Media," Venediktov said on RTVI television, following a meeting of the radio station's editorial board on Thursday.
"The Prosecutor General's Office didn't demand Echo of Moscow's cutoff. Naturally, we'll challenge this in court, I mean the Prosecutor General's Office letter and Gazprom Media's decision," he said.
Private individuals own 34% in the ZAO Ekho Moskvy company, and "probably they are surprised by this decision, the liquidation of their asset," Venediktov said, adding that he personally owns a 19% stake in the company.
Venediktov said he is sure that "the political decision" on ending the radio station's broadcasts and closing its website "was made not in Gazprom."
"It's obvious from the letter sent by the Prosecutor General's Office that it was composed in a hurry, and there are absolutely mendacious statements there, which will also be challenged in court," he said.
The 91.2 FM frequency, on which Echo of Moscow has been broadcasting for a long time, belongs to ZAO Ekho Moskvy, and the radio station's archive is also owned by the company, in which one-third of the stock belongs to minority shareholders, Venediktov said.
ZAO Ekho Moskvy may be liquidated, Venediktov said. "I think ZAO will try to liquidate itself now. As shareholders, we will be opposed to that, but as long as the frequency [belongs to] ZAO, which has not been liquidated, all the journalists are continuing to work, because they were hired by the joint stock company rather than the editorial board. Therefore, the editorial board is working," he said.
The radio station is continuing to work on social media and is available on YouTube. Venediktov suggested waiting for further developments.
"Everything is changing so quickly. My proposal was discussed in well-known quarters only yesterday [on Wednesday]. I made that offer to them, that I would resign, and they would guarantee that Echo of Moscow would be preserved with the procedure of its editor-in-chief's election. This was discussed but was rejected. Let's see what Gazprom Media would say, which is being forced to make political decisions," he said.
Venediktov said his contract was not severed, and therefore, his decisions on further steps as editor-in-chief remained mandatory for Echo of Moscow's employees, as before.
The board of directors of ZAO Ekho Moskvy decided on Thursday to liquidate the radio station's radio channel and website. The Echo of Moscow radio station's broadcast in Russia was stopped and its website was blocked at 9 p.m. Moscow Time on March 1, and the same happened to the TV Rain channel (designated as a foreign-agent media outlet by the Russian Justice Ministry). The Russian Prosecutor General's Office accused both media outlets of spreading fake information about the Ukraine situation and for inciting extremism. Echo of Moscow and TV Rain said they would go to court to challenge the decision of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and insisted that they did not break the law.
Echo of Moscow is part of the Gazprom Media holding. It has been operating since August 22, 1990. The radio station's broadcast was halted in August 1991 on the orders from the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), but it managed to go back on the air at the time.
