Russian public broadcast council names chairman

The newly formed Russian Public Television Council has named Oleg Tabakov, artistic director of the Moscow Art Theatre, as its first chairman.

The recently formed council will be responsible for overseeing the broadcasting schedule of the new public TV service as well as content development and human resources.

Yuri Simonov, head of the sub-department for world literature and culture of the MGIMO educational institute, and Alexander Shkolnik, president of the Young Journalists’ League, were named as Tabakov’s deputies.

A separate supervisory board for the organisation has also been set up, chaired by Mikhail Ostrovsky, deputy head of the department of electronic media at Nizhny Novgorod University.

Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev last month signed a decree setting up a framework for the new public broadcasting organisation, with Anatoly Lysenko named as director-general. The new service is scheduled to launch in May next year, although no details have been publicly made available regarding its budget. How the service will be distributed also remains unclear.