Short answers, pulled from the story.
All television broadcasts in the Soviet Union stopped completely between 1941 and 1945 due to Nazi Germany's invasion. This five-year silence marked a stark interruption in what would become the nation's most popular medium.
The Russian Constitution was adopted via national referendum on the 12th of December 1993, establishing Article 29 which guarantees freedom of thought, expression, and information dissemination. This right can be limited only by law when protecting national security or public morality.
By November 1967, the Orbita system deployed three highly elliptical Molniya satellites with Moscow-based uplink facilities and about 20 downlink stations across remote Siberian and Far Eastern regions. Each station featured a 12-meter receiving parabolic antenna designed to re-broadcast signals directly to local households.
On the 29th of November 2018, the Russian government approved an ASO roadmap covering phased regional shutdowns starting the 11th of February 2019 across eight regions then expanding progressively until October 14 when twenty-one additional areas completed transitions. Seventy thousand volunteers assisted households setting up equipment while 30,000 social workers supported vulnerable citizens throughout the process.
Today there are about 6,700 television channels operating across Russia with three achieving nationwide reach exceeding 90 percent coverage: Channel One, Russia-1, and NTV. State-owned entities dominate major networks including VGTRK which operates Russia-1 since 1991 alongside Russia-K established in 1997 and Russia-24 launched in 2006.