Know your place: for TV channels, New People and the CPRF are out of favour, and “minor parties” do not exist at all
Report on the monitoring of federal TV channels during the sixth week (20–26 July) of the election campaign for the elections of deputies to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the ninth convocation, scheduled for 20 September 2026
The “Atlas of Elections” project has launched a weekly monitoring programme of federal TV channels during the State Duma deputy elections. We will track how equally the activities of election participants are covered on state-controlled federal TV channels.
Television remains one of the main sources of information for many Russians. At the same time, society places a special role on the media — they are responsible for creating the conditions for citizens to conduct public political discussion. Both the Russian Constitution and many international covenants require the media to take ethical and balanced positions and to cover the electoral process in a fair, balanced and impartial manner. Media representatives must not engage in campaigning.
The results of the media monitoring are published weekly.
During the sixth week of the election campaign, the party lists of New People (20 July), United Russia (21 July), the LDPR (22 July) and A Just Russia (23 July) were registered. Documents for registration were submitted by Communists of Russia (20 July), the Pensioners’ Party (20 July), Yabloko (21 July), Rodina (21 July), the Party of Direct Democracy (22 July) and the Greens (22 July).
Main findings for the sixth week of the campaign
Last week, against the backdrop of the registration of parliamentary party lists, attention to the election topic increased noticeably on television. Admittedly, the interest was rather selective. United Russia received almost half of all airtime, while the “minor parties”, which have yet to complete the registration process, were not mentioned at all this time.
Stratification also emerged among the “parliamentary parties”: although the CPRF and New People were mentioned, they received a very small amount of airtime, roughly two to three times less than the LDPR and the SRs, not to mention the party of power.
The “parliamentary parties” were given the opportunity to present the main provisions of their election programmes and the key directions of their campaigns. For United Russia, the topics of support for participants in the special military operation and their families were actively covered, as well as programme provisions: technological sovereignty, regional development, support for young scientists and small business. In the case of the CPRF, the talk was about the party’s assistance to the “new regions” and support for the army, public unity and new technologies. The LDPR was actively mentioned in connection with the fight against migration and the defence of the Russian language. The SRs’ programme was not covered, but Sergei Mironov’s statement — who has already announced that the elections will be held honestly and without violations — was widely circulated. New People practically did not focus attention on the topic of the special military operation: the airtime featured proposals on improving the quality of life, supporting entrepreneurship, developing domestic tourism, student initiatives and Russian crafts.
Number and content of news items
In the sixth week of monitoring, federal TV channels’ attention to the election topic grew substantially. This occurred to a significant degree due to the coverage of the registration of the party lists of New People, United Russia, the LDPR and A Just Russia. On Russia 1, elections were mentioned in 36% of news bulletins, on Channel One — in 29%, on TVC — in 28%, and on NTV — in 19% of bulletins.
The most noticeable increase in the amount of airtime devoted to the election topic was demonstrated by NTV — the volume grew almost sixfold. On Channel One, the volume of election items doubled. At the same time, Channel Five and OTR paid no attention at all to the election topic this time. The total volume of airtime doubled — to 56 minutes (from a paltry 27 minutes a week earlier). Admittedly, these figures are still significantly lower than they were on the same dates in 2021.
All four parties whose lists were registered in the sixth week of the campaign received a fairly diverse audience — they were talked about on four channels. The CPRF, as in the previous week when its list was registered, received coverage of its activities on three channels. The remaining parties, however, did not enter the zone of attention of federal TV channels.
Differences in the editorial priorities of individual TV channels persisted. This time, Channel One devoted the most attention to United Russia, the Russia 1 TV channel — to the LDPR, while TVC covered the activities of the CPRF, A Just Russia and the New People party more frequently.
Distribution of airtime between parties
In the sixth week of the election campaign, the TV channels decided not to pay attention to the majority of election participants — six parties out of the 11 that had declared their desire to take part in the elections were not mentioned on television at all. Even their submission of documents to the Russian CEC for list registration did not help. This is an anti-record for the last four weeks. And in the case of Yabloko, for example, the scandal over the refusal to register the party’s lists at two regional elections and its leader’s appeal to the chair of the Russian CEC were not covered.
In terms of the volume of airtime allocated, United Russia broke into the lead — it received almost as much attention as all the other parties combined. The activities of the party of power were covered for a total of 26 minutes, while the other parties that received registration — the LDPR, A Just Russia and New People — received 11, nine and six minutes respectively. The CPRF, which received registration a week earlier, got a modest four minutes this time. Moreover, even last week it had only nine minutes — incomparably little compared to its main competitor.
Growth in the average airtime mentioning a party, which shows how substantive the items were, was demonstrated by all parliamentary parties, with the exception of the CPRF. United Russia again received the largest volume of airtime — the average duration of an item featuring it was 1.64 minutes. For the CPRF, this indicator remained practically unchanged compared to the previous week and stood at 0.63 minutes. The SRs and the LDPR each received more than a minute on average. New People, however, ended up at the level of the CPRF.
Tone of mentions
In the sixth week of the campaign, the tone of party coverage became more positive compared to the previous week. Practically all reports about United Russia and the majority of items about the LDPR had a positive tone. The remaining parliamentary parties also received predominantly positive or neutrally informative coverage. Negative assessments, as in previous weeks, were not recorded.
Thus, unlike past State Duma elections, the current coverage of political parties’ activities remains strictly neutral or positive. The tone rating, which is calculated as the difference between positive mentions and negative ones, has so far not once entered negative territory for any party.
News pegs of the week by party
United Russia
United Russia became the most visible participant in the federal news agenda. The main news pegs were the registration of the federal list of candidates, the start of election campaigning, discussion of the provisions of the “People’s Programme” and events dedicated to supporting participants in the special military operation and members of their families.
Channel One paid particular attention to meetings between party representatives and participants in the special military operation. In particular, it covered the meeting between Vladislav Golovin, Chief of the General Staff of Yunarmiya, who is on the party’s federal list, and special military operation veterans in Chelyabinsk.
The Russia 1 TV channel focused on the substantive part of the party’s election programme; among the key directions mentioned were technological sovereignty, regional development, support for young scientists and small business.
CPRF
The main news peg for the CPRF remained the registration of the federal list of candidates, although a significant portion of the reports repeated topics from the previous week.
Additionally, the dispatch of humanitarian aid to the special military operation zone and the “new regions” was mentioned. The items stressed that over the past twelve years the party has sent more than 30,000 tonnes of humanitarian cargo to territories in the zone of the military conflict. Direct speech by Gennady Zyuganov was quoted, in which he called for support for the Russian army and for following the president’s course, and also stressed the importance of public unity and modern technologies.
LDPR
The main news peg for the LDPR was also the registration of the federal list of candidates. This stage of the election campaign was covered in the greatest detail by the Russia 1 TV channel.
In addition, the TV channels paid attention to the party’s election programme. The airtime featured statements by Leonid Slutsky that the LDPR is focused on addressing citizens’ practical needs. The key directions of the programme were named as strengthening control over migration, improving migration legislation, protecting traditional values and supporting the Russian language.
A Just Russia
As with the other parties, the main news peg for A Just Russia was the registration of the federal list of candidates.
The news bulletins also featured statements by Sergei Mironov that the upcoming elections would take place in difficult conditions due to possible attempts at external pressure. The party leader stressed the readiness to ensure public oversight of the voting process through the work of observers and legal support for the election campaign, proclaiming that the elections would be honest. Aspects of the party’s election programme were practically not covered by federal TV channels.
New People
The main news peg was also the registration of the federal list of candidates and the start of the active election campaign.
The focus of attention was Vladislav Davankov, who presented the main directions of the party programme. On the TVC channel, Vladislav Davankov, presenting the party’s federal list, stressed: “It is important that these people are new, these people are professionals, and they are ready and will work for the people.” Unlike the majority of parliamentary parties, New People practically did not focus attention on the topic of the special military operation. The airtime featured proposals on improving the quality of life, supporting entrepreneurship, developing domestic tourism, student initiatives and Russian crafts. It was separately stressed that the party’s federal list is formed from representatives of various professional communities.
Yabloko, Rodina, Communists of Russia, the Russian Ecological Party “The Greens”, the Party of Direct Democracy and the Pensioners’ Party
There were no items devoted to the political programmes or public activities of non-parliamentary parties on federal television this week.
Methodology
Six federal TV channels that are part of the first multiplex and enjoy the greatest popularity among viewers were selected for the media monitoring — Channel One, Russia 1, NTV, TV Centre, Channel Five, OTR.
On each of the six TV channels, news bulletins available in video archives were analysed. During the sixth week of the election campaign, from 20 to 26 July 2026, 225 news bulletins were studied (Channel One — 38 bulletins, Russia 1 — 36 bulletins, NTV — 37 bulletins, TVC — 29 bulletins, OTR — 61 bulletins, Channel Five — 24 bulletins).
We analysed each news bulletin for the presence of items about political parties. If there were items about parties, we were interested in the following indicators:
the number of mentions of the party;
the time allocated to the party;
the tone of the information (positive, neutral, negative);
the presence of direct speech by party representatives;
the presence in the item of voters’ opinions about the parties;
characteristics of the parties voiced by the presenter or voice-over.