Advertising as a source of financing for Tomsk mass media in the 1990s

The aim of the present article is to analyze the organization of the advertising sphere and its functions of financing regional mass media taking the media sphere of the city of Tomsk in the 1990s as a case study. The issues related to the study of the impact of advertising on the local media market remain insufficiently researched. One of the reasons for this is poor preservation of the source base, which was not transferred to local archival institutions and disappeared after the closure, reorganization or merger of advertising agencies. The main sources of the study are the results of a survey of Tomsk advertising agencies, documents of the internal office work of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Tomsk", the text of the Encyclopedia TV-2, the archive of a Tomsk media group called "Median". Despite the fact that this information is fragmentary and has different sources and objectives, it still provides a documented idea of the dynamics of changes in the field of advertising business in Tomsk. The survey results obtained in 2000 help to see the intermediate result of the development of the advertising sector in the region on the way from the era of the 1990s to the era of the 2000s. With the beginning of market reforms in the last decade of the 20^th century the advertising sphere received a new impetus to its revival and development, like in the pre-revolutionary period, by referring to the practices of Western marketing and by developing its own specific forms, in accordance with the domestic cultural context. The rapid development of the "old" post-Soviet and the emergence of new, already Russian, local press, characterized by high-quality materials and highly qualified personnel, has predetermined, in addition to the high level of Tomsk journalism, the rapid organizational and commercial growth of the advertising sector. Despite the fact that organizations did not have permanent advertising partners and existed in a competitive environment with high taxes, the advertising sector in Tomsk demonstrated dynamic growth and creativity. Advertising has ensured the material success of most publications and broadcasters in the 1990s. For some organizations, earnings from the production and / or distribution of advertising activities accounted for 100% of income. Advertising made it possible to preserve the main publications of the city of Tomsk, their thematic face (for example, the regional newspaper «Krasnoe Znamya»), and also led to the emergence and development of new publications (for example, «Tomsk Bulletin»). A number of specialized advertising and informational publications also appeared, satisfying the needs of a wide readership in a market economy. Having gone through the process of its formation in the 1990s, Tomsk advertising market continued to be the driving force behind the development of Tomsk media sphere in the 2000s. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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