On January 11, 2002, a separate Russian television channel, TV-6 lost a court battle over bankruptcy and was placed into liquidation by a unanimous decision of thirteen judges of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court. At midnight on January 22, 2002 the Press Ministry pulled TV-6 off the air. The frequency was temporarily filled with programming from the NTV Plus Sportssatellite channel. The auction for TV-6's old frequency took place on March 27, 2002. The Media-Sotsium partnership won the frequency auction, becoming the licensee and broadcaster, with the employees of the former channel TV-6 forming much of the production staff. On June 1, 2002 TVS began broadcasting. On July 22, 2002 the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled that MNVK was taken off the air unlawfully.
Editorial policy
Many Russians and foreigners consider TVS' editorial policy to be critical towards the government of Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Kasyanov. It was considered to be the last channel with completely independent editorial policy.
Closure
Suffering from low ratings and poor advertising revenue, TVS had many financial problems. TVS's debt to Vneshekonombank came to about US$100 million. TVS also owed more than $6 million in back pay to employees, who had not been paid for some three months. Mostelekom began switching TVS' signal off Moscow's cable television networks on June 2, 2003, which rendered more than 90% of Moscow residents unable to view it. Mostelekom demanded that the TV company's shareholders pay off arrears of RUB 245,672m. On June 17, 2003 TVS editor-in-chief Evgeny Kiselyov announced that lack of funding had made it impossible for the company to continue operating, and that after June 23the channel suspended broadcasting. Stating it was "for viewers' benefit" the Ministry of Press switched off all TVS broadcasts on June 22, 2003 – 24 hours before the shutdown planned by station management was to happen. Like the closure of TV-6 the year before, the regularly scheduled programming was suddenly interrupted by a brief announcement that the channel was "taken off the air" before switching to a testcard. It was widely speculated in the press that such a hurried closure was performed to prevent the final broadcast of Evgeny Kiselyov's "Itogi" show, the only remaining opposition political broadcast at the time. Later MNVK allowed the state all-sports channel to broadcast on the vacant channel 6.
