The story
Founded by Roman Abramovich in 2000.1
In 2000, under pressure from Mikhail Lesin, Gazprom-Media acquired NTV, the only nationwide television channel independent of the government at the time, as well as other media assets of Vladimir Gusinsky's Media Most group – including the satellite operator NTV Plus, TNT, the radio station Echo of Moscow, and the Seven Days publishing house – which resulted in major controversy and considerable changes to the channel's editorial policy.
After taking over Media Most in 2000, Gazprom-Media received assets and personnel from Filipp Bobkov's dissolved Fifth Chief Directorate of the KGB, including its thousands of employees, its database, and the security service founded by Bobkov that had been accused of attempting to assassinate Boris Berezovsky in 1994. The directorate's entire archive had been taken to Media Most. In 2000, Bobkov created the Institute of Strategic Studies and Analysis (ISSA), a joint stock company. It was led by Vaqif Hüseynov, the former head of the KGB in Azerbaijan, and operated as a think tank and successor to Media Most's security department. Vladimir Zhizhin chaired the ISSA's board of directors from 2001 to 2002.
In 2005, Gazprom-Media purchased Izvestia, a national daily newspaper. In May 2008, the National Media Group bought a 50.19% stake in Izvestia from Gazprom-Media.
In August 2005, Gazprom-Media Holdings was sold to Gazprombank for 37.22 billion rubles. In 2012, Gazprombank's ownership was split between Gazprom with a 41.73% stake and NPF Gazfond with a 46.92% stake. Most of Gazfond's stake was managed by the financial company Lider. As a part of the SOGAZ insurance company, Lider had been controlled by Rossiya Bank, whose largest shareholder was Yuri Kovalchuk, an associate of Vladimir Putin. In March 2014, Rossiya Bank sold its indirect control of Lider to Gazfond, which now owns a 45% stake in Lider. Since 2003, Gazfond's president has been Yuri Shamalov, who is also the deputy chairman of Gazprombank.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gazprom-Media, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4