If the head of Russia’s state Agency for Press and Mass Communications Mikhail Seslavinskiy is to be believed, Russian state-owned companies such as Gazprom will sell their media assets gradually over 18 months to two years. The reason given for spreading the sales over a longer period of time was to get a good price. So does this mean that Gazprom & co – and president Putin – regard their media assets as just a kind of private equity investment? Not very likely, given the Putin administration’s intense activity to control the major mass media. Anyway, a sell-off would seem like a step in the right direction (via Editor’s Weblog).

More Russia media news:

The Guardian has round-up of this week’s high-level media conference in Moscow.

Gorbachev invests in Novaya Gazeta.

Aftonbladet’s cooperation with Novaya Gazeta and Anna Politkovskaya.