It’s been less than 10 years since the Soviet Union collapsed, but for media executives like Eugene Abov, it seems like more than a lifetime.

“In the past 10 years, we’ve covered the path that your countries took dozens of years to cover,” said Abov, a longtime Russian journalist who is now deputy director general of Prof-Media, a 5-year-old media holding company.

Among Prof-Media’s holdings are Komsomolskaya Pravda, Izvestia, the weekly Express Gazeta and stakes in other publications, as well as in a press distribution agency, radio stations, a TV station, an economic news service and an advertising agency. The total circulation of Prof-Media’s printed publications is about 40 million, Abov says.

Many of the publications are holdovers from Soviet times. In fact, Komsomolskaya Pravda still displays Lenin medals as part of its nameplate. But the one-time party organs have now been privatised – and the biggest threats to their independence have more to do with economics than politics.

“The number of titles is growing, (but) the reach is shrinking,” Abov said.

Abov says the post-Soviet newspaper market has been overwhelmed by “trash and tabloids” that appeal to the public’s lowest common denominator. And too often, newspapers are used as money-laundering operations for ill-gotten profits or as a “tool for manipulating public opinion.”

“We set a task to get rid of these bad practices,” Abov said.

“The major invention in our business, compared with Soviet times, was (the application of) market principles in media, with all the changes in management, editorial, marketing and technology. To speak about the market approach to newspaper publishing would be to tire you all with banalities. But it was a discovery to us in Russia.”

He points to Komsomolskaya Pravda as a clear success story. KP is the No. 1 national newspaper in circulation, its gross revenues rose 35 percent between 1999 and 2000, and profits rose 14 percent in the same time frame, Abov said.

“The success is related in our minds mostly to the innovation and the reinvention that we’ve managed to find in Komsomolskaya Pravda. … All these innovations were inspired by discussions held here (at WAN) five or seven years ago,” Abov told the Congress. “This is what we’ve managed to implement with your help.”

Komsomolskaya Pravda, like other Russian newspapers, is far behind the West in newsroom technology, Abov said. But KP does draw upon such innovations as satellite page delivery – or even Internet-based page delivery – to scores of printing locations across Russia and other former Soviet states. Regional content is added to the national edition at 56 locations.

Meanwhile, the paper’s recently redesigned Web site, www.kp.ru, gets more hits than any other Russian newspaper site. And Abov feels confident that the Internet will quickly become an integral part of the newspaper scene.

“In Russia, within one or two years, we will see through the ad rate structure of our papers … that the majority of advertising sales will be those newspapers that offer a package with online solutions,” he predicted.

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