MTG snaps up Russian DTH satellite platform

Sweden’s MTG has moved into the Russian DTH market by acquiring a 50% stake in Raduga Holdings from Continental Media for an undisclosed cash fee. Raduga is the sole owner of LCC DaoGeoCom, a company that operates the national satellite pay-TV platform Raduga TV.

Raduga TV made its debut in February 2009 and had 70,000 active subscribers as of the end of last year. It currently offers over 50 channels, including five from Viasat, for R300 (€7.22) a month on a three or six month pre-paid contract basis. Its service is encrypted with Irdeto conditional access and distributed via the Asia Broadcasting Satellite ABS-1 at 75 degrees East Northern Beam to over 90% of the Russian Federation.

Continental Media will share management control of Raduga, which will be proportionately consolidated and report in MTG’s pay-TV emerging markets segment.

Raduga is one of five DTH platforms currently serving the Russian market. The largest in terms of subscriber numbers (Tricolor TV) and longest established (NTV-Plus) came under the same ownership a few months ago. The other two platforms are Orion Express and Platforma HD.

With the acquisition of a 50% stake in Raduga TV, MTG will provide DTH services in a total of nine Scandinavian and CEE countries.