Anna Deserted. Or the rise and fall of Inter TV channel

Not long ago, Focus magazine, in its ranking of influential women, placed the head of Inter Media Group, the management company of the Inter TV channel, Anna Vitalievna Bezlyudnaya, in seventh place. The same one that is an active enemy of the ban on Russian television series and concerts with the participation of Russian stars supporting the DPR on Ukrainian television channels. Well, you can understand it. After all, it was through the efforts of Anna Vitalievna that the Inter TV channel turned from an innovative channel that dictates the fashion in Ukrainian television into a gray “cinema booth” broadcasting second-rate telenovelas and various “main songs about the old” with the participation of Kobzon, Valeria, Boris Moiseev and Taisiya Povaliy. Where did this “medaidama” come from and who is she? Let’s try to talk about it.

First coming to Inter

Anna began her career on state television. In 1997, she joined the newly created Inter TV channel. There she very quickly rose to the position of chief editor of the information service. In those days, competition in the television market was not very high, and the news program “Details” really took a leading position in its segment. Bezlyudnaya also deserves credit for this. The employees who worked with her in those years remember her as an “iron lady” who ruled the service in a very tough manner. Almost everyone was afraid of her – from journalists to drivers. However, after some time, the then head of Inter, Alexander Zinchenko, fired her. No one knows exactly why this happened, but they say that the reason was Anna Vitalievna’s too free handling of finances, which the service entrusted to her earned from advertising, and from the so-called jeans – custom-made materials placed in the news. Be that as it may, after her dismissal in 2001, she opened the entire studio “Profi”, that is, on paper, this studio had existed since 1999, but began to work only after Bezlyudnaya joined it.

By the way, Anna Bezlyudnaya showed her despotic character not only at work, but also in her personal life. Friends of banker Vasily Gorbal, Anna Vitalievna’s ex-husband, recall that he was very afraid to come home even after drinking a little – his wife simply beat him. Therefore, he asked his friends to accompany him to his apartment and sit with him for a while. But let’s return to the Profi studio.

In free flight

Together with Bezlyudnaya, a team of specialists left Inter, including many respected people in television. This is the famous director Anna Gres, and journalist Alexander Melnichuk, and screenwriter Mark Gres, and many others. Obviously, this whole team thought that they would create a quality product, sell it to channels and live in chocolate. The final owners of the Profit studio were 50% to 50% Anna Gres and Anna Bezlyudnaya. But, to be honest, it didn’t work out very well. The studio did some projects, made films. But, naturally, it was not possible to earn the money that Inter gave at one time. Then Anna Vitalievna simply “ditched” her friend and co-owner of the company, Anna Gres, and transferred the entire business to herself. This was not difficult to do, since the latter dealt mainly with creative issues, and all documents were controlled by Bezlyudnaya. Gres left the studio, and with her part of the team. In television, the main thing is people, specialists, and Anna Vitalievna lost them. The studio began to slow down. And then a man appeared in her life. Looking ahead, let’s say that he became the only man for her for many years. And there is a rather piquant reason for this.

The only man

This mysterious man’s name is Dmitry Firtash. He just made his way into the oligarchs. And what is an oligarch without his pocket media resources? And Dmitry Vasilyevich decided to create his own TV channels. Here he met Anna Vitalievna. The channels were called K1 and K2, and they still exist today. True, both in those times and in the present, these media resources can hardly be called influential. But Bezlyudnaya bet on the right horse. Or rather, “stallion”. And since then, she and Firtash have been inseparable. However, their relationship is far from romantic. The fact is that Anna Vitalievna, how can I say this… “is not for boys.” She is a lesbian and surrounds herself with pretty girls whom she places in key positions. Perhaps, thanks to this reputation, or more precisely, her orientation, she has stayed close to the oligarch for so long, without causing the jealousy of his wife, Lada Firtash, who, as they say, does not allow women to come within range of her husband. But these are, rather, her personal affairs; we will return to media matters. In 2007, Firtash decided to increase his influence in the media space and invested money in the Inter group of companies, buying out part of the shares (61%) owned by Russian businessman Alexander Abramov, the second part belonged to Valery Khoroshkovsky. It is clear that Dmitry Vasilyevich needed his own “supervisor” at the first button in the country.

Second coming to Inter

Quite naturally, Anna Vitalievna got the position of such a “supervisor”. In 2007, she was appointed general producer. They say that the employees who worked under her leadership in the late nineties received her with joy. But, as they say, we rejoiced early. It turned out that Bezlyudnaya harbored a grudge against them all: supposedly, when Zinchenko fired her, she expected that the entire information service would leave with her. And the terror began. Almost all the employees who stood at its origins were forced out of the channel. Journalists Maxim Ravreba, Orest Rebman, Alexander Kolodiy, Anastasia Obraztsova, Marina Soroka, Taras Govdya and many others left the channel. In principle, by that time they had all gone through a good school and were famous, so they were not left without work. And Anna Vitalievna placed her brother Anton Nikitin and her “girls” in key positions: Natalya Dzhun, Irina Ionova-Pilate, Ekaterina Shkuratova and others. Through her efforts, Inter began to transform from a channel launching its own powerful projects into a rebroadcaster of Russian TV series, KVN, concerts with the participation of Soviet and post-Soviet pop music and other gray products. The channel’s news began to work out Firtash’s interests. The oligarch himself first appeared on the TV screen on the air of “Svoboda on Inter”, where he used his signature interjection, something like “ponime”, and called journalists to him with the gesture with which waiters are usually called. Well, by that time, through the efforts of Bezlyudnaya, the TV channel had truly turned into the oligarch’s service staff.

Conflict with Granovsky

But in 2008-2009, Anna Vitalievna had a conflict with the political consultant of Firtash and Khoroshkovsky, Vladimir Granovsky, over the division of election budgets. The fact is that Bezlyudnaya was promised a passable fourth place on the list of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s party. Provided, of course, that she works on air on the TV channel entrusted to her. Arseniy Petrovich really began to appear in the news and Inter shows, where he was asked the “right” questions and only compliments were given about him. But she forgot that the channel is not her property. And the shareholders of the channel decided to support Viktor Yanukovych. And in general, by that time, Bezlyudnaya had the most scandalous reputation. The channel’s ratings went down. One of the co-owners, Valery Khoroshkovsky, was also negative towards it. She also had plenty of ill-wishers in the channel’s management. In a word, in 2009 she was “merged” from Inter. And after her all her “girls” left. But everything was framed as leaving for a promotion. Anna Vitalievna went to the oligarch’s company Group DF, which stands for “Dmitry Firtash Group”, and there she became the director of external relations and communications of the holding. She held this position until 2013.

Third coming to Inter

During this time, Firtash bought out Khoroshkovsky’s share in the Inter group of companies, that is, in fact, he became his sole owner. And in 2013, Anna triumphantly returned to the channel, taking the position of head of the entire Inter Media Group. Her return was marked by new dismissals and new, high-profile scandals. For example, Inter was almost deprived of its license for the New Year’s “Blue Light,” where Kobzon, banned in Ukraine, was shown. Then the TV channel showed a number performed by Yanukovych’s fugitive comrade-in-arms, former Party of Regions deputy, Taisiya Povaliy. And in the scenery of the channel’s concert on May 9, a map of Ukraine appeared with Donbass cut off in favor of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).

And the channel’s news turned into an outright mouthpiece of the disgraced oligarch, who is now under arrest in Vienna. Despite all this, and maybe thanks to all of the above, Anna Vitalievna continues to lead the country’s most important media holding. And, apparently, it will continue to “steer” as long as it belongs to Firtash.

Max Reva, for SKELET-info