One of the first acts of Boris Yeltsin's new government was to sign a presidential decree on 27 December 1991, providing for Russian jurisdiction over the central television system.

[10][11] A presidential decree of 30 November 1994 transformed Ostankino into a closed joint-stock company, called Russian Public Television (Obshchestvennoe Rossiyskoye Televidenie, or ORT).

The partial privatization was inspired by the intolerable financial situation of Ostankino owing to huge transmission costs and a bloated payroll (total staff of about 10,000 in early 1995).

[12] After the fallout from Listyev's death on 1 March, Alexander Yakovlev resigned from his post as chairman, as the channel was facing an uncertain future on the verge of becoming ORT.

From 1 April 1995 to late 2002, the channel was called ORT (ОРТ—Общественное Российское Телевидение, Obshchestvennoye Rossiyskoye Televideniye; Public Russian Television).

In September 2008 the channel installed new digital audio mixing systems in their new state-of-the-art broadcast complex located in the Ostankino Television Technical Centre in Moscow.

Ernst stated that he yanked the show because Dorenko had defied his orders to stop discussing the government's plan to nationalize Boris Berezovsky's 49-percent stake in the network.

According to the inspection[32] conducted by the Audit Chamber of Russia and initiated by MP Alexander Lebedev, in 2005 the channel had the following shareholders structure and board of directors: ORT Bank Consortium, RastrKom 2002 and EberLink (49%) are controlled by Roman Abramovich, while Rosimushchestvo, ITAR TASS and TTTs vote on behalf of the Russian state (51%).

[37] The critics contend that Channel One airs a disproportionate number of stories focusing on positive aspects of official government policy, while largely neglecting certain controversial topics such as war in Chechnya or social problems.

[38] In a 13 October 2004 news story, Channel One reporter Natalya Kondratyuk declared that "the Premier [Yanukovich], as a candidate, is adding to his ratings by working on the economy and by solving current social problems; he does not use slogans; he is not criticizing his opponent; and he is not creating scandals.

A few days later, on 27 January 2005, as the protests continued across Russia, a Channel One reporter noted, "You can understand the elderly [protestors, but] repealing free [bus] fares was the last hope for public transport.

"[citation needed] Similarly, on a 12 February 2005 broadcast, a Channel One anchor declared, "The key question of the week has been: how are Presidents [Mikheil] Saakashvili [of Georgia]) and Yushchenko [of Ukraine] different?

[citation needed] As of 2006, Vladimir Pozner, Ekaterina Andreeva, Pyotr Tolstoy and Mikhail Leontiev are among the most known political journalists of the channel.

[39] Moreover, various media reported that the channel presented a biased coverage of other events that were closely connected to Russia's foreign policy, including the Ukrainian elections to the Verkhovna Rada in 2007, the Euromaidan of 2013-2014, and the following annexation of Crimea.

[43] Vladimir Pozner, one of the channel's most popular TV hosts, once admitted in an interview to the New Yorker that he composed a list of people who could not participate in his show.

[37] According to a BBC News analysis by Stephen Ennis, the channel has in its reports about Ukraine's war in Donbas "sought to further demonise and dehumanise the Ukrainian army".

"[47][48][49][50][51] Some of the television period dramas produced by Channel One were series criticized for low level of historical accuracy, for instance – Brezhnev,[52] The Saboteur,[53] Yesenin[54] and Trotsky.

[55] The morning of 12 January 2008 on the current affairs program Health (Russian: «Здоровье») with Yelena Malysheva about Guillain–Barré syndrome, in one of the sections a rat was violently killed.

On 1 January 1997, another logo featuring a golden italic "1" was launched, with a partial ring and the ОРТ letters now in 3 separate blocks, which was designed by Novocom, along with Igor Barbe.