Mr. Seslavinsky noted "a headlong rise" of the number of mass media in Russia for the last decade.
"In early 1990s Russia had only 170 TV companies, mainly state-owned ones, whereas now our country has over 2,500 television companies and over 40,000 press media," said the head of the agency.
Mr. Seslavinsky assessed the advertising market in mass media this year at $1,270 million. At that, in his words, most part of it is focused on television.
Mr. Seslavinsky also noted that for the recent time, the Russian segment of the Internet has seen an increase of the number of sites registered as mass media. The number of such sites is 1,296 now.
He also said the state will continue to financially support Russian mass media.
"We are forced to support Russian media, though it is out of line with the market principles," said Mr. Seslavinsky.
He explained the necessity of such support by the preservation of people's right to receive information.
"In small remote towns people sometimes can only watch national TV channels and read regional newspapers with a print run of 2,000-3,000. If state support is stopped for such mass media, they will die," he added.
Speaking about television, the agency head noted: "At many TV channels there is a deficit of educational, children's, and humanitarian socially important programs."
In Mr. Seslavinsky's opinion, "without state support of such programs, commercial TV channels will be poorer from the informative point of view."
As examples of such a state policy, Mr. Seslavinsky named TV channels Kultura and Sport, as well as the Good Night Kids program running for over 40 years.
Mr. Seslavinsky said the large-scale state support of educational humanitarian projects on television will be continued.
