NTV, the last remaining national, non-state television station in Russia.

ECONOMIST: The smell test

Its handicaps include corruption, moribund universities, organised crime, socially approved protectionism and a deeply ingrained hostility to competition (when a private rail operator, NTV, launched a new service from Rome's Ostiense station last week, passengers found their path to the trains blocked by a fence put there by a subsidiary of NTV's state-owned competitor).

ECONOMIST: Italians fret that they may end up going the same way as Spain