Petersburg - Channel 5

Petersburg – Channel 5 or simply known as Channel Five (1938-1986 as Leningrad Television, 1987-2004 as Saint Petersburg Television), is a television channel based in St. Petersburg, Russia, also known simply as Channel 5 (Петербург–Пятый канал). Director General: Alexey Brodskiy, Producer General: Ljubov Sovershaeva. Channel 5 succeeded the nationwide Leningrad TV channel dating back to 1938, which was immensely popular throughout the Soviet Union during the last years of Perestroika with such programs as 600 seconds of its editor-in-chief, Alexander Nevzorov. However, later the channel lost much of its popularity. In 1997 its nationwide network was transferred to the newly formed Kultura TV, and the channel continued broadcasting for Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast only. During the tenure of Governor Vladimir Yakovlev (1996–2003) the channel, then entirely controlled by the city adiministration and supervised by Yakovlev's vice-governors for mass media and PR, Alexander Potekhin (1997–2001) and Irina Potekhina (2001–2003), became dragged into political scandals around the city's political elites. In October 2006 Petersburg – Channel 5 was licensed to broadcast nationwide again. As of now, its main owner is National Media Group.