Moscow-The fire that devastated the Ostankino Tower, the city's main TV transmitter and the world's second-tallest freestanding structure, is changing the fortunes of a number of Russian television companies-temporarily, at least.
Firms that invested in new technology now hold the advantage, while those that relied on the Soviet-era broadcast system-with its central-planning legacy and decrepit condition-were left scrambling.
Most Russian TV broadcasts were not affected by the fire, as local stations transmitted signals from national networks RTR, ORT and NTV.
But here and in the surrounding area-a market of about 18 million viewers-practically all TV and radio stations use the Ostankino Tower, and were off the air starting Aug. 27 as the fire spread.
In a bit of irony, the winners this time were the underdogs of the recent bitter political struggle between the Kremlin and opposition TV stations.
One is Vladimir Gusinsky's Media-MOST, which owns direct-to-home television platform NTV Plus and UHF channel THT, the latter of which relies on a different transmission facility.
The other is Stolista, a cable channel controlled by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and transmitted on city-government-owned cable network Mos-telecom. THT and Stolitsa were the only channels most Moscovites could receive from Aug. 27 to 29.
Kremlin-backed national networks ORT and RTR, as well as other channels, had to turn to their rivals for help in delivering their signals. Stolista aired ORT's and RTR's prerecorded newscasts, while the ORT feed was uplinked to the NTV Plus platform.
The fire affected multichannel-television companies drastically, yet differently.
Kosmos TV, a subsidiary of U.S.-based investment firm Metromedia International Tele-communications Inc., had to apologize to its customers for interrupted service. Its multichannel-multipoint-distribution-service transmitter, like broadcast- station gear, was located on the Ostankino Tower.
In contrast, NTV Plus is struggling to cope with a flood of potential customers.
Prior to the fire, the company received about 500 inquiries per day and made between 20 and 40 sales. On Aug. 28, NTV said, the computer at its customer-service center registered 209,787 incoming calls-about 400 times the ordinary traffic.
Although the number of customer-service operators was more than tripled and work hours were extended until 2 a.m., only 2,790 calls could be answered and 1,114 subscriptions sold. That figure includes only direct sales, and not those from independent dealers.
With most television companies and government officials struggling to resume the broken transmissions, NTV Plus worked on a twofold task.
NTV Plus general director Yevgeni Yakovich negotiated with the Press Ministry and television executives, offering the company's services to transmit the other channels to cable headends.
Vladimir Lensky, NTV Plus' executive director, oversaw the efforts, tripling the number of installation technicians and promising to serve new customers within one week. He was also busy ordering additional equipment from Europe, where, he said, French and Dutch factories supplying NTV Plus decoders switched to three-shift workdays.
"We are the only ones who can deliver the signal to individual clients and to cable operators on the little 60-centimeter dish," Yakovich said in an interview.
In addition to ORT, NTV Plus also carries state-owned channels RTR and Kultura, as well as broadcast channel NTV.
The DTH platform had offered to supply equipment to city-owned cable operators that are part of Mostelecom, much of which is little more than an upgraded version of old collective-antenna systems. Such a plan would have enabled 80 percent of Moscovites to receive the main broadcast channels, the government said.
But the city government balked. It prefers to guide investments to Comcor, a company it owns, which wired Moscow with a broadband fiber-optic cable backbone. However, Comcor has yet to connect its networks to Mostelecom, which owns district cable systems, effectively providing the "last mile" to homes, Lensky said.
The issue [of resuming the broadcasts] has moved to the economic sphere," he added. "It is clear that money would be spent on this now, and companies are struggling to get this money."
Comcor and Mostelecom could not be reached for comment at press time.
Teleinform-a private cable system that operates in southeastern Moscow-agreed to install NTV Plus receivers, and it delivered NTV channels to about 1.5 million Moscovites by early last week, NTV said.
NTV Plus has yet to win the struggle to convert its upper hand into revenues. "It is a huge upset for us, a huge problem that has to be solved," Lensky said.
To attract new customers, NTV Plus offered a free package of government channels-ORT, RTR and Kultura-to those who pay at least $184 for the equipment. The price of the gear could be higher depending on whether the dwelling has the southern exposure needed to position the dish.
However, NTV Plus senior operator Nelli Sheikina, who handles the flood of telephone calls, said most people who ordered NTV Plus during the past three days opted to subscribe to its standard package for $18.95 per month.
She said the price of equipment, and not the subscription, is the main barrier to potential customers. NTV Plus packages range from $8.95 to $32.80 per month, but shelling out $300 for the hardware, installation and programming is difficult for most Russians.
Before the fire, NTV Plus had 140,000 subscribers, one-half of them here and in the surrounding area, company officials said.
