The Ukrainian portal bigmir.net has begun to carry movies obtained directly from a number of leading TV channels.
According to Kommersant, this follows an agreement between the portal, which is the country’s fifth most popular, with 2.2 million visits in April alone, and ICTV, New Channel, STB (StarLightMedia), 1+1 and several other parties.
Details of the partnership have not been disclosed but it is hoped will help bigmir.net compete more effectively with such pirate sites as ex.ua and fs.ua.
Legal online video sites are finding life tough in Ukraine, with oll.tv, for instance, attracting 344,500 visits in April, or only 14% more than in June last year.
On the other hand, ex.ua and fs.ua claimed 2.4 million and 943,800 visits respectively in April.
