If the people were willing to go to revolution, but they seem to like the guy who goes about being the strong man. I don't understand it, but it happens in the US and Russia. If Putin controls the media, he can get away with a lot. The economy has gone to hell, and yet still has support. In a true democracy he'd have been kicked out a long time again.
The media is often made up of intelligent people who have the ability to put their thoughts down in words. They might not be un-biased, but usually with a free media you'll have different types of bias which balance itself up.
How interesting

As I know, Putin doesn't control a lot of media, only a few official resources. Is he controls economics? He trying, but who said you, Russian economics in hell? It's not a good time now for consumers, but a lot of chances for new businesses, replacing foreign... The level of life now is significantly lower, but if it a fee for solving at least a part of problems with US aggression - no any Russians could worry about it...
Russians are strongly dislike wars after WWII, which took every seventh life here. But don't have an illusion - after a years of "peaceful" and "compromised" US politics all Russians are ready to total war with US. It's interesting, when a lot of US civilians discussing about "another lesson to Russia", do they really ready to bid their lives in a "Big Game" for the "some interests" of US government?
Putin, as far as I know, controls the whole of the media.
Take the TV. Two of the three main channels are owned by the state. NTV, the third channel is owned by Gazprom-Media, which is owned by Gazprom, which the state owns.
Of the top 16 TV channels, 11 are owned by the state, one by the Moscow city government which is Sergey Sobyanin who is in the United Russia Party, which is Putin's party.
Only Dozhd is a non entertainment channel, owned by Natalya Sindeyeva. A truly non-govt tool. The govt tried to shut the channel down, but they moved to a private apartment. i.e. they got hassled a lot by the govt.
So all in all most of the TV media is owned by the state.
Too many journalists have been killed, and suspected of being killed by Putin or his supporters.
That's not a free media.
Ha-ha... Let's take the largest TV channels (except advertising):
1 (State) and 2 (Russian) channels - offcourse, this is official channels, Putin controls them...
NTV - former opposite channel, now they not to abuse Putin - but it's all they can.
5TV (St.Petersburg) - indirectly depends... In a situation of Mannerheim memory plate, for example, it was neutral, not pro-Putin...
OTR - independent
Spas (a church channel) - independent
Star (in fact, a communist' channel) - opposite to Putin
REN - independent...
An I'm not saying about a lot of regional channels - they, maybe, partially controlled by local administration... or no...
Almost all of media channels in Russia - commercial, first, they're making money, not provide politics. As for Dozhd - it's not an opposite, it's anti-russian channel, why do you surprised, Russians in mass don't want to watch it?
About killed journalists - yes, I agree. There's a big wave of journalists murders at Ukraine in last two years, and Putin do nothing to save them from growing nazism of Potroshenko-Ripper...