text: NTV (Cyrillic: НТВ) is a Russian free-to-air television channel that was launched as a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company . Since 14 April 2001 Gazprom Media controls the network. NTV has no official meaning according to Igor Malashenko, the author of the name and co-founder of the company, but in the 1990s unofficial transcripts of the acronym include "New" (Novoje), "Independent" (Nezavisimoje), "Non-governmental" (Negosudarstvennoje), "Our" (Nashe).
  History
  Gusinsky era (1993-2001)
  Gusinsky founded NTV broadcasting in October 1993 on channel 4. It moved to channel 5 in January 1994. He attracted talented journalists and news anchors of the time such as Tatiana Mitkova, Leonid Parfyonov, Mikhail Osokin, Yevgeniy Kiselyov, Vladimir A. Kara-Murza, Victor Shenderovich and others.  The channel set high professional standards in Russian television, broadcasting live coverage and sharp analysis of current events.  Starting before the dissolution of Soviet Union as Fourth Programme, the channel broadcast a daily news programme Segodnya and a weekly news-commentary programme Itogi which was jointly supported by the United States magazine Newsweek (at the time, a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company, now Graham Holdings Company). In the early 1990s, , a multibillion-dollar advertising agency, obtained exclusive advertising rights on NTV.
  It commented favorably on President Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996.
  By 1999 NTV had achieved an audience of 102 million, covering about 70% of Russia's territory, and was available in other former Soviet republics.