Censorship and the issue of Media freedom in Russia have been main themes since the era of the telegraph. Radio was a major new technology in the 1920s, when the Communists had recently come to power. Soviet authorities realized that the "ham" operator was highly individualistic and encouraged private initiative– too much so for the totalitarian regime. Criminal penalties were imposed but the working solution was to avoid broadcasting over the air. Instead radio programs were transmitted by copper wire, using a hub and spoke system, to loudspeakers in approved listening stations, such as the "Red" corner of a factory. Due to the enormous size of the country Russia today leads in the number of TV broadcast stations and repeaters. There were few channels in the Soviet time, but in the past t