The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV has issued an open letter to other participants in the country’s pay-TV market.
It is a direct response to the criticism that has been directed at it by some of those participants in recent days, specifically related to the pricing of its premium HD content.
In the letter, Tricolor TV says that its pricing is part of a long-term development strategy that has been in place since the company’s launch seven years ago.
It has enabled Tricolor TV to become the world’s third largest DTH platform in terms of subscriber numbers.
At its launch in 2005, Tricolor TV became the first non-state TV operator to offer viewers a free channel package, while the cost of its thematic package, which now consists of over 100 channels, has remained unchanged at R600 (€15.3) a year since 2007.
The pricing of the new HD package (R900 a year), introduced earlier this year, is in line with Tricolor TV’s strategy to date.
Tricolor TV also says its relations with content providers are purely market driven and in each case correspond to the commercial interests of both sides.
The operator, which now has just over 11 million subscribers, aims to make its HD offer into a mass-market product.
