Russia seems unprepared for HbbTV despite plans by the Russian Television and Broadcasting Network (RTRS) to launch a hybrid TV platform on its network in 2014.
Quoted by AKTR and Comnews, RTRS’s deputy director general Victor Pinchuk said that broadcasters should make themselves fully conversant with what will be a new advertising market now, otherwise they would have difficulties in catching up afterwards.
Interestingly, there is also a lesson to learn from Teletext, which was actively promoted in Russia in the early 1990s but failed to make an impression on either broadcasters or indeed viewers.
Russian broadcasters may also feel it is too early to introduce HbbTV, given that the country has yet to launch its second multiplex, for which TV channels have already paid RTRS for carriage.
Earlier this year, RTRS announced that it was testing three HbbTV platforms.
It planned to launch pilots in three large cities, each with a population of over one million, employing DVB-T2 consoles with internet connections.
