Anywhere from 2,000 (BBC) to 30,000 (NTV) people from Moscow, as well as some from other regions who came specifically for the event, assembled at the rally in Moscow at the Ostankino TV center. "We're for NTV" and "We'll defend NTV" were among the many signs that waved over supporters' heads, while well-known politicians, public figures, and journalists --Grigoriy Yavlinskiy (Yabloko), Irina Khakamada (SPS-Union of Right Forces), Yevgeniy Kiselyov (general director and host of a news program on NTV ) -- spoke from a makeshift platform.

The speakers talked of NTV as being in the forefront of defending democracy and free speech, and that, because of this, the government and big-business interests connected with it were pursuing a vigorous raid on the channel.

It's pretty much in this same light that the western corporate media is presenting the NTV issue: "Democracy vs. dictatorship", "Freedom of speech vs. censorship", etc. While paying attention to this, the purely commercial interests of the conflict are put on the back burner by people on both sides of the conflict.

In reality, it is exactly this commercial aspect of the conflict that is the deciding factor. Behind the ideological argument over NTV's place in the history of Russian democracy, there is a virulent clash of various corporate/oligarchic interests. The political side to of this, of course, is inseparable from the commercial interest.

Why, exactly, would the US firm Capital Research and Management delegate its 4.4% share of NTV to Gazprom (46%) so that Gazprom could hold the scandal-ridden NTV stockholders meeting? Capital Research and Management representative Chuck Freidhoff plainly stated that Gazprom would better defend the economic interests of NTV, and thus those of its foreign investors (on the "money doesn't smell" principle).

US media magnate Ted Turner is ready to buy 25% of NTV stock from Vladimir Gusinskiy (head of Media Most, which owns 49.5% of NTV shares). Turner is not particularly inclined towards democratic standards and the freedom to express oneself, as we can see from his brainchild, CNN, where employees aren't even allowed to smoke, let alone allow anything but "politically correct" material, i.e., anything that doesn't fit into CNN's general propaganda line.

In essence, there is a competition between capitalist sharks for NTV stock, with each side cynically and insolently using their administrative and financial resources, propaganda, and brute strength. Here, the interests of the typical consumer are not only not the primary concern, but are not even taken into consideration. This is where all the aggressive PR is coming from, which demonstrates the true feelings of the professional information- and media- brokers to the audience: "The ones who pay get to pick the music".

The Russian public, unfortunately, generally takes the side of one or the other media baron and/or the institutions that serve them, not paying attention to the problem of the dominance of corporate media and the fatal-for-democracy alliance of corrupt politicians and criminal business that come together under the umbrella of neo-liberal globalization.

The fight for NTV is a classic criminal dispute among the financial/political elite, the monopolistic interests of which are in all cases contrary to the interests of the common citizen and the stability of the national economy as a whole. Casting off the ideological/financial yoke of the corporate media-monopolists (and those like them) can only be accomplished by a widespread mobilization of independent media structures of a non-commercial and social character.