Financial Transparency of Large Media Businesses in Russia: Changes in the Aspects of the Problem

Section: Media Economics

This paper examines the legislative norms on forming and revealing financial accountability for different types of media enterprises in modern Russia. The author analyzed the difficulties related to the differences among the existing legal approaches to the formats of information provision. The documents the analysis was based on were as follows: the Tax Code of RF (1998), the laws "On the Stock Market" (1996), "On the Official Statistical Records and the System of State Statistics in the Russian Federation" (2007), "On Consolidated Financial Statements" (2010) and "On Accounting" (2011). The current versions of the texts were borrowed from the information and reference system KonsultantPlus. While investigating a number of industry cases, some gaps were found that prevented systematic collection and study of economic indicators of certain players in the media market. The sample included six largest media enterprises of the country (Yandex, Mail.Ru, Google, Gazprom-Media, National Media Group and VGTRK) as well as six leaders of the industry's individual segments. The websites of the companies, the Rosstat base and the Internet resource of the Federal Tax Service were used as a source of financial information. The author of the paper concluded that the main problem today is the absence of a mandatory requirement of consolidated financial accountability for all media companies that appear to be holding corporations. This, in particular, makes it imposible to correctly calculate the volumes of the national media industry in general and its individual segments.

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