Aram Ashotovich leaves for sports. Aram Gabrelyanov: “I don't believe in the media. Their time is gone

Oleg Kashin spoke about the departure of the legendary publisher from the post of General Director of News Media - "the man who set the tone for the development of Russian media in the tenth, and eventually ceased to be needed by the current government"

As a child, Aram Gabrelyanov was wanted to be raised by the banker Thatcher in another city. The banker arrived in Derbent and found little Aram sledding. He wanted to take the boy with him, but Aram grabbed the sled and hit the banker with it. On the sled was written "Rosebud", and when the ruined palace of Aram was prepared for sale, this sled would burn in the fireplace along with the rest of the property no longer needed by anyone.

I am now retelling an unfilmed movie. Remakes of classic films are often shot in Russia, and if it comes to someone’s mind to remake Citizen Kane, then, of course, its action will have to be transferred to Derbent, Ulyanovsk and Moscow, and some charismatic Armenian, whom in our cinema, thank God, quite a lot. But such a film, of course, will fail at the box office, because it will be difficult to fit into Hollywood history such a rise and fall, in which, instead of a ruthless fate, there is an even more ruthless political context of Russia in the tenth century.

There has been only one case in the history of Russian media when a regional newspaper with its entire editorial office moved to Moscow and turned into a large nationwide media outlet. The former "Ulyanovsky Komsomolets" turned into the newspaper "Life", without attracting anyone's attention at all - this experiment was too strange and this niche, the newspaper "about the stars", copied from The Sun, was too far from the interests of the media community. And when one day it turned out that during rush hour in the Moscow metro, if a person has a newspaper in his hands, then most likely it will be the newspaper Life, everyone suddenly became interested in what it was, and there was a fashion for the newspaper Life , rapper Guf composed his songs about her, snobs laughed at her sugary language, when instead of “children” it is necessary to write “angels”, and in all other cases - “I'm shocked”. Then the chief of this newspaper himself became a star - a cheerful swearer, not at all like an ordinary media manager, but clearly dreaming of being one - ordinary and at the same time the best. Literally like the hero of Orson Welles in the famous movie.

Aram Gabrelyanov stepped down as CEO of News Media

And it was precisely at this stage that the scenario of Citizen Kane failed because Russian politics, and Russian reality in general, intervened. Tabloid culture, this narrow-mindedness, raised to the absolute, suddenly became the Russian mainstream, the Russian official ideology. Putin himself became a tabloid hero, a topless man on horseback, but this language - when "everyone is in shock" - became the only language of power. Television turned into a tabloid, everything in Russia turned into one big tabloid story, and the path trodden by Gabrelyanov, who was not noticed by anyone in the late nineties, became the main road of the state. The whole logic of the development of Russia in the 2000s led the newspaper Zhizn somewhere in the direction of the Kremlin. It is clear that one day the famous “friends of Putin” became the owners of Gabrelyan’s business, but this was not a squeeze, it was an alliance, and Gabrelyan’s Izvestia became the symbol of this alliance as the main semi-official newspaper of the early tenths, and the amazing Life TV channel, all brief whose history fits into the history of the "Russian spring" of 2014 - hybrid television waged a hybrid war and won it, setting standards, professional and ethical, for "adult" TV channels that learned to crucify boys precisely from tabloid culture.

The time when Izvestia and the Life TV channel were at the top of the Russian media pyramid can be considered Gabrelyanov's triumph - not so much as a manager, but as an ideologist and visionary. But it is precisely this role that in Russian conditions turns out to be a curse, because at some point the authorities begin to think that they can cope without him. When the traditions of the newspaper "Life" spread throughout the Russian space, when all the official media turned into one huge tabloid, Gabrelyanov became superfluous. The TV channel was closed, Izvestia was taken away, Life broke up into several Telegram channels, a sled with the inscription “Rosebud” burned down in the Kremlin fireplace.

According to Kashin, Gabrelyanov, the man who set the tone for the development of Russian media in tenths - more than a manager, ideologist and visionary - eventually ceased to be needed by the current government

Gabrelyanov leaves defeated. He did not fit into the new near-Kremlin configuration, he bet on the wrong people, he believed too much in his own importance in conditions when someone's independent significance turns out to be a disadvantage. But in today's Russia, every piece of news is like a headline in the newspaper Zhizn, and every official is a tabloid hero by default. “Everything that lives should follow the path of grain,” and the dead tabloid sprouted in thousands of sprouts in the media, in government, and in society. It is not necessary to love Gabrelyanov, but that he is a semantic and style-forming figure of the era - this now seems indisputable.

Original material: TV channel "Rain"

"Kommersant", 08/24/18, “Life.ru is being prepared for a new life”

Aram Gabrelyanov wants to sell a stake in the project

Aram Gabrelyanov is negotiating the sale of his stake in News Media, which manages the Life.ru website. The project will be restarted without his participation and will become a platform for bloggers, similar in concept to Yandex.Zen. Life.ru plans to spend up to 7 million rubles on payments to authors. per month.

In early October, the Life.ru website will be relaunched as a platform for copyright content, Anatoly Suleymanov, general director of News Media JSC, which owns the Life.ru domain and trademark, told Kommersant. “Life.ru is no longer just a site for jingoists,” he explains. Any author will be able to upload texts or videos to the site, and neural networks will filter illegal content. Now the site earns 8–12 million rubles from advertising. per month and 5-7 million rubles. willing to pay authors. “We hope that with the restart we will earn more, in six to nine months we will be able to reach zero and start recouping money,” Mr. Suleymanov specified. Editorial materials will remain on the site, but their relationship with copyright will change.

The new concept of Life.ru is similar to "Yandex.Zen" - a platform for authors who can receive money if their posts have collected at least 7,000 rereads per week. Monetization on Life.ru will be enabled after 2,000 rereads, says Alexander Potapov, project manager. He agrees that the model resembles Zen, but points out the differences: “Most of the Zen feed is not user-generated content, but the media to which Yandex ships traffic. We do not really see the original authors, and the monetization scheme, as far as we know, does not suit everyone. We want to give authoritative content a platform for authoritative bloggers of all views, authors of Telegram channels on various topics and, in addition to top authors, to attract people who want to speak out.”

Half of the Yandex.Zena feed consists of publications created on the platform, a representative of this service objects. It has 12,000 active authors and 7,000 websites, the feed is generated by an algorithm based on the reader's preferences, and the daily audience is 13 million users. The forecasted revenue of the service for 2018, calculated from the data for May, is 4 billion rubles, Yandex reported earlier.

Now Life.ru is a portal with such content as, for example, an investigation about daughters who killed their father, or the story of a grandmother who “attacked a paramedic with an ax.” The audience accustomed to the traditional Life.ru may leave, but in the future the attendance will grow, Alexander Potapov hopes. “The mechanics of the site will change. It will be more like Medium (social journalism platform.- "b") where the user can shape the feed,” he said.

Two employees of the publication told Kommersant that in the new format the platform will start without its founder, Aram Gabrelyanov, “neither as a publisher nor as a shareholder,” since he is close to selling a stake in the project. Kommersant's interlocutors believe that he now owns 25% of News Media JSC and shares in individual projects of the company, such as Super.ru. SPARK-Interfax indicates that 25% of News Media is owned by a Cypriot company, 75% belongs to the Media + fund, whose contacts match the data of the National Media Group (NMG), where Mr. Gabrelyanov previously worked. After leaving there in 2017, he took up the Moscow Ararat football club and moved away from the media, Anatoly Suleymanov clarifies. Aram Gabrelyanov himself and a representative of the NMG declined to comment. A source close to the group stressed that NMG has nothing to do with Life.ru either as a shareholder or at the management level.

Paying for content has always been a key issue for the Internet industry, recalls Sergey Efimov, director of marketing technologies at OMD OM Group. “Platforms received content conditionally as a given, since the main part of investment-attractive content is television. In recent years, digital providers are starting to invest more and more in content, costs are growing by 80-150% annually,” he explains. But another trend has become apparent, the expert adds: user-generated content does not have the necessary level of quality to attract an audience.

Anna Afanasyeva

In 2006, Boris Fedorov, former finance minister of the Chernomyrdin government, a member of the Gazprom Board of Directors and head of the UFG financial company, acquired a 49 percent stake in one of the most popular Russian tabloids, the Zhizn newspaper.

UFG invested $40 million to control 49 percent of the publication's shares.

“You can write about anything and anyone, but there are three topics that are closed even for discussion - these are Putin, Patriarch Alexy and the state,” this could often be heard at meetings of the editor-in-chief, a native of Dagestan, 45-year-old Aram Gabrelyanov.

Now Gabrelyanov is already 56, but the newspaper Life, after rebranding Life, has remained a pro-government publication. Until 2016, the group had the closest ties to the presidential administration. The peak of Gabrelyanov's media opportunities fell on the period from 2012 to 2016 - it was then that Aram Ashotych managed to build close relations with representatives of the presidential administration. "Life" was not without reason considered a Kremlin publication.

It cannot be said that before the arrival of Volodin and the formation of the new Presidential Administration in 2012, Aram Gabrelyanov did not cope well - during the years of work for Vladislav Surkov, he participated in a campaign to whitewash the reputation of the latter.

However, the secret of the success of a talented Armenian should be sought in the 90s, when he bought the popular St. Petersburg newspaper Chas Rush from Pavel Gusev MK and presented (sold for a symbolic price) to Natalya Chaplina, the wife of the closest friend of President Viktor Cherkesov.. .

Perhaps I will again be suspected of conspiracy theories, but I think it’s not worth explaining that Viktor Cherkesov is a member of the very "Shkolov group". Cherkesov became one of the first victims in the confrontation between the special services, and his FSKN was defeated by other law enforcement agencies.

Considering that after 2012, Life had very serious investments, and contacts with the AP became permanent, there is reason to believe that it was Shkolov’s entry and his contacts with Volodin that contributed to the flow of cash from the AP towards Life.

In 2016, Aram Gabrelyanov started having problems - Vyacheslav Volodin left the Presidential Administration, and the flow of money from the presidential administration stopped. Apparently, the Kremlin's former "black cash desk" left with Volodin, and the new political administrators were forced to form a new "black cash desk". Accordingly, monetary relations with the old contractors in the political direction were basically broken. "Life" was left without a roof in the AP.

Even if Gabrelyanov had no connections with Shkolov-Cherkesov, Life's funding would have stopped anyway. In conditions when the media field has been completely cleared and is under the control of near-Kremlin oligarchs, there is no point in maintaining a separate court publication.

The main problem of the enterprising Armenian lies in the existence of Kovalchuk's National Media Group, which includes the leading Russian media. Given that Yuri Kovalchuk himself is in direct contact with Vladimir Putin, and the new leadership of the presidential administration is in contact with Kovalchuk, there is simply no point in financing Life. There is a clear excess of federal publications, and their temnik is no different from each other.

A distinctive feature and feature of Life has always been yellowness, and in general there is nothing wrong with that. The really terrible thing is that Gabrelyanov blames his more successful colleagues for his own financial problems.

Since there was a catastrophic lack of funds for the development of Life, they tried to find a way out in social networks. Gabrelyanov invested in the creation of “yellow” communities on Vkontakte, such as the Mash project and the promotion of the network of urban communities on Vkontakte. Telegram channels have not been ignored in Life.

How I exposed "Bouncer and Sonya"

Not so long ago, an anonymous person representing the telegram channel “Bouncer and Sonya” knocked on my PM. At first it was fun, but then it became extremely boring and dull - the anonymous person took on too much, indicating how to write and what to do. During my communication with “Hvastun”, I managed to establish that he is especially nervous about journalists Evgenia Albats, Alexandrina Elagina and Natalia Morar.

When I began to study Volodin and his entourage, several times I had to mention those who could be behind the financing of Life. These notes caused a painful reaction from the "Bouncer", who tried to expose me, trying to get to my sources of information and customers. Unfortunately, Sasha Yunashev did not succeed - the entire Ural party knows that our editorial office is sitting without money.

A little later, after conducting a content analysis of his publications, I was convinced that the executor of the project was Sasha Yunashev, an employee of Life. On the Web, you can find a video where Sasha barks at people, and his voice completely matches the voice of an anonymous person with whom I had to communicate.

The last straw was the fact that when a DDoS attack began on the Rupolit.net website, Sasha Yunashev accused me of cheating - supposedly there was no attack on the site from his posts, but I keep fantasizing. Well...let me fantasize. Trying to hurt or offend me, he even posted a screen on his channel, on which his IP address was mistakenly indicated; a little later, he wiped this post.

Now, following the publications and inquiries from Yunashev, we can confidently state that the project "Bouncer and Sonya" was being prepared as a big exposure of the "enemies of Aram Ashotovich Gabrelyanov." The list of enemies included not only these journalists, but also high-ranking Russian officials - Sergei Kiriyenko, Igor Sechin, Sergei Chemezov.

Within the framework of the author's concept of the existence of a bundle Shkolov-Volodin-Chuichenko The courtly proximity of Aram Gabrelyanov's projects to the Presidential Administration until 2016 is understandable - Viktor Cherkesov could act as a lobbyist for Life. The most remarkable thing is that the opposite is also true - an analysis of Life's publications indicates that this particular bunch was the key political force during Vladimir Putin's third presidential term. This also explains the conditional "independence" of the group to the political opponents of the group, about which we wrote in previous articles.

Aram Gabrelyanov, whose nationality is Armenian, is a well-known Russian businessman. He is the president of a holding that produces high-circulation tabloids in the Russian Federation. Launched the Life.ru video portal. He is the chairman of the board of directors of the Izvestia newspaper.

Education

Aram Ashotovich Gabrelyanov was born in 1961 on the tenth of August in Dagestan, in the city of Derbent. He spent his childhood there. Gabrelyanov Aram Ashotovich, whose biography is closely connected with business and the media, like many, first graduated from high school. Then he entered the Moscow State University at the Faculty of Journalism.

Career

In 1985, Aram Gabrelyanov, whose wife was originally from Ulyanovsk, moved to his wife's homeland. At first he trained in the newspaper "Ulyanovsky Komsomolets". Then he began to work as a correspondent. Gradually climbed the career ladder. First he became the head of the department, then deputy editor, executive secretary. And finally, the editor-in-chief of the publication.

Activities in Ulyanovsk

At the plenum of the regional committee, he proposed to transform Komsomolets into a new edition - The Word of Youth. This has been approved. As a result, in the early nineties, the newspaper began to be published with the features of the yellow press. In 1991, the publication was privatized by the staff and changed its name to Simbirsk Provincial News. And Aram Ashotovich had the Company became a Closed Joint Stock Company, and Gabrelyanov - its head.

By 1997, the circulation of the publication had grown significantly, reaching two hundred thousand copies. The newspaper had its informants, whose work was paid. The latest information about significant regional events has always been delivered to the newspaper very promptly. Therefore, the publication quickly gained circulation and enjoyed success with the population.

Creation of a publishing holding

In 1995, Aram Gabrelyanov, whose biography from the point of view of his work began with printed publications, bought the Ulyanovsk edition of Local Time in Dmitrovgrad. At the end of the same year, he acquired fifty percent of the shares of the SKiF commercial organization. She owned the newspaper "Scythians", which had an economic direction. After some time, a new edition with the name "Skif" was created on its basis. The founder of the new newspaper was Joint Stock Company "SGV".

On the basis of the last two newspapers mentioned above, a publishing holding called Vedomosti-Media was gradually created. Somewhat later, it included printed editions of Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd and Saratov.

Moving to Moscow

In the ninety-sixth year, Aram Gabrelyanov, whose photo is in this article, moved to Moscow. He registered and began publishing the weekly Moskovskie Vedomosti. Due to the 1998 default, Gabrelyanov had to save his business with his own funds. Not only did he put all his money into it, he also sold his cars, mortgaged his apartment, and borrowed money from friends.

By 1999, the business situation had leveled off, and Aram Ashotovich already owned twenty-nine newspapers. In the same year he returned to Ulyanovsk, but already as the editor-in-chief. In 2000, the press controlled by Gabrelyanov helped in the election campaign of the governor and mayor of Ulyanovsk. But Aram Ashotovich could not work well with the new leadership and again left for Moscow.

First mainstream tabloid

There he renamed Moscow News into the weekly Life, for which he created a separate publishing house. The format was borrowed from the famous English tabloid. The publication quickly became popular, as it published scandals related to the personal lives of Russian show business stars. In 2006, the circulation of the weekly exceeded two million copies. Gabrelyanov Aram Ashotovich became the general director and editor-in-chief of the newspaper.

In 2001, on the basis of the publishing house, the holding company News Media Open Joint Stock Company was established. "Life" became a brand under which other publications began to be printed ("Life. Ulyanovsk", etc.). The newspaper was on a par with the main Russian tabloids. In 2004, she entered the top five most popular. Mainly due to paid informants who provided exclusive materials.

By 2005, the Life brand united fifty-two Russian printed publications and had a representative office in Kyiv. In some cities newspapers were issued daily, in others once a week. At the end of 2005, Aram Gabrelyanov resigned from the post of editor-in-chief and became chairman of the board of directors.

Since 2000, negotiations have been underway to sell part of News Media. The deal took place in 2006. As a result, slightly less than 50% of the shares were sold to a fund created by former Finance Minister Boris Fedorov and his partners.

With the funds received from the deal, Gabrelyanov increased the circulation of many of his publications and organized a large-scale advertising campaign. At the same time, he rebranded the newspaper "Life". Crime and sexual themes were removed from the publication. As a result, the newspaper has become solid, for family reading.

Business Sprawl

In 2006, a new edition appeared - "Your Day". Regional branches were located in several cities of Russia. In 2007, Gabrelyanov Aram Ashotovich replaced the post of General Director of News Media with the position of Editorial Director and Chairman of the Holding. Subsidiaries of the company appeared in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine.

In 2006, Gabrelyanov planned to open his own printing houses and develop a distribution network. But he changed his mind and spent the available funds on the Life.ru website, which was based on exclusive videos.

Initially, the idea was to create not just an Internet portal, but an operational news agency, so that visitors could not only provide their materials, but also receive fees for this. In a short time, the site Life.ru was in seventh place in terms of popularity in Runet. In 2009, Gabrelyanov divided it into three parts. The first is breaking news. The second is show business news. The third is sports.

In 2009, journalism courses were opened at News Media. Along with other specialists, Aram Gabrelyanov himself taught. In the same period, two more new projects appeared. The first is "Heat" (secular magazine). Philip Kirkorov was appointed its editor-in-chief. And the second project appeared in 2010 - the business newspaper Marker. It was supposed to be strikingly different from similar publications due to exclusive materials and the speed of their placement. At the same time, the calculation was mainly on the popularity of the publication among young people.

In 2010, News Media Open Joint Stock Company became the first Russian company to sell video materials to leading TV channels. By this time, the holding had already managed two - "REN-TV" and "Petersburg-Fifth Channel". In 2011, Gabrelyanov became the deputy general director of NMG, who oversaw the holding's Internet projects and the Izvestia publication. In the same year, Aram Ashotovich headed the board of directors in it.

Then an agreement was to be signed, according to which the News Media holding began to deal with the newspaper. He covered all publishing costs. In 2012, due to Gabrelyanov's plans to integrate Izvestia, many employees and the editor-in-chief quit. New personnel were recruited.

Gabrelyanov and politics

Some journalists paid attention to the pro-Kremlin direction of the printed publications of Aram Ashotovich. Notes appeared in the media about his connection with United Russia. Gabrelyanov is on good terms with the head of the presidential administration.

Thanks to Surkov, Gabrelyanov has access to the presidential press pool. The printed publications of Aram Ashotovich professionally and objectively covered the Crimean events in connection with the return of the republic to Russia. For this, Gabrelyanov was awarded on behalf of the President in April 2014.

Aram Ashotovich Gabrelyanov: reviews, criticism, scandals and conflicts

Periodically, the publications of Aram Ashotovich were criticized. He was accused of unethical, illiteracy and unprofessionalism. In 2010, a screenshot of one of the Life News articles was posted on Kashin's blog, which spoke of provocations at the rally. As a result, Gabrelyanov spoke in strong terms at the planning meeting regarding employees. This angry speech was recorded on a dictaphone and posted online.

Some of the materials published in News Media were sued by the heroes of the articles. And they accused the publishing house of unreliability of published data and interference in personal life. But Aram Gabrelyanov believes that a public person already has his whole life in plain sight. In principle, it cannot be a secret, since celebrities are always in the spotlight. And public people need to be ready for this.

In 2011, pictures were published on the Life News website of how the deputy is at the wedding in the fascist uniform of V. Canaris. As a result, a complaint was filed against Gabrelyanov to the court. But 4 experts confirmed that the pictures are genuine. As a result, Mikheev had to not only pay moral damages to Aram Ashotovich, but also publish a refutation of the accusations against Gabrelyanov on REN-TV.

In April 2014, Aram Ashotovich decided to close the Ukrainian edition of Life. The reason was the refusal of the local editorial office to publish pro-Russian materials. As Gabrelyanov's son Ashot explained, the employees refused to publish the materials sent because of fears that the Ukrainian authorities would apply sanctions against them.

Family

Aram Ashotovich Gabrelyanov married his classmate. His marriage is happy, the spouses live in perfect harmony. Gabrelyanov Aram Ashotovich, whose wife bore him two sons, is a happy father.

The first son, Artem, graduated from Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism. He successfully defended his diploma in tabloization of modern Internet media. But before that, in 2008, he had already worked as deputy chief editor in the international news department. Artem himself wrote many articles for glossy publications. In 2011, he was appointed editor-in-chief of Bubble comics.

The second son, Ashot, also became a journalist, like his father and older brother. He began publishing at the age of fifteen. His first reportage was about the American drunk director Tarantino. At the age of nineteen, Ashot was appointed editor-in-chief of Life News. In 2012 - Executive Director of News Media.

After a while, Artem left for permanent residence in the United States of America, in New York. Ashot until 2014 worked as the general director of the media resource.

The grandfather of Aram Ashotovich, Nikolai Ter-Gabrelyan, is known for having founded in the village at his own expense. Tatev Orthodox Monastery.

Gabrelyanov's character and beliefs

Aram Gabrelyanov is convinced that the media must be emotional and truthful. Even if for the sake of this it is necessary to get video materials where and how a public person dies. Gabrelyanov first of all appreciates the result in his work, which pays well. He does not tolerate indifferent people next to him, he prefers active and efficient people. For his subordinates, he is an example of how a person can achieve heights by starting small - from the position of a simple correspondent.

Image copyright Artyom Korotayev/TASS Image caption Aram Gabrelyanov together with the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov

General Director of News Media Holding Aram Gabrelyanov left his post. The new head of the holding was his deputy Anatoly Suleymanov.

"Aram Ashotovich warned in advance that he was leaving the post of general director. The post of general director was offered to me, the post of head of Life - to Alexander Potapov. The appointment to the post of general director was, the documents were transferred to the tax office," Suleymanov told RNS.

In a conversation with VC.Ru, he said that Gabrelyanov has recently been mainly involved in projects not related to the media. "I guess at some point he became uninteresting," he said.

Gabrelyanov himself has not yet commented on his decision.

Life will change the format

After Gabrelyanov's departure, Life, which is part of the News Media holding, will change its format, Suleimanov said. In particular, according to him, it will give up the media license and become a platform for posting user content, where anyone can publish.

"The presentation of political and social phenomena that was in Life must change. Firstly, we want to provide a platform with an audience of 20-23 million unique users per month for everyone, regardless of political beliefs, and secondly, to pay for content" - Suleimanov explained.

According to the head of Life, Alexander Potapov, the authors of publications will be paid fees based on the readability of their materials. About half of the project's advertising revenues are expected to go towards this.

According to Potapov, changing the concept of the project will not lead to reductions in editorial staff, and that the project will not completely abandon editorial content.

In recent years, Life has cut costs and, in particular, abandoned the TV channel of the same name a year ago. Gabrelyanov then explained that the holding plans to replace on-air broadcasting with streaming. At the same time, sources in the holding claimed that the closure of the TV channel was accompanied by cutbacks.