Fact Sheet: Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue (Text Only)

The White House
President George W. Bush

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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 24, 2002

Fact Sheet: Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue
Russian-American Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue

Since Presidents Bush and Putin launched it in November 2001, the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue has met several times, both in Russia and in the United States. The purpose of this Dialogue is to improve business conditions that can support free and independent private journalism. American participants traveled to Russia in March 2002 to meet with their Russian counterparts to discuss the state of the Russian media and possible areas of cooperation. In April, the American coordinators, the National Association of Broadcasters, and the Newspaper Association of America hosted Russian Dialogue participants at their annual conventions and held further discussions. The Dialogue is convening a meeting in Moscow coincident with the meeting of the two Presidents, and representatives will have an opportunity to brief the two Presidents on progress to date.

Four working groups have been formed to address industry constraints and solutions in the areas of industry structure, content, economic base, and technology.

The Russian side is preparing a "state of the industry" report that aims to provide a comprehensive look at the ownership and economic control of the national and regional media in Russia for the May 20-24 meetings in Moscow.

Dialogue participants expect to deliver specific recommendations to the U.S. and Russian Governments in June.

The participants are expected to address the following issues during their May meetings:

Industry supervision of measurement (ratings, readership, circulation audits), crucial for advertising sales and programming;

Regulatory and legislative conditions for commercial media vis-à-vis the Russian state-controlled media;

Association-building; and

Evolving business models will be studied and discussed based on American experience in cross-media partnerships, changes in TV network-affiliate relations, and planning for the transition to digital and HDTV formats.
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