NTV (Cyrillic: НТВ) is a Russian free-to-air television channel that was launched as a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company Media-Most [ru]. Since 14 April 2001 Gazprom Media controls the network. NTV has no official meaning according to Igor Malashenko, the author of the name and co-founder of the company, but in the 1990s unofficial transcripts of the acronym include "New" (Novoje), "Independent" (Nezavisimoje), "Non-governmental" (Negosudarstvennoje), "Our" (Nashe).