A tipping point has now been reached in Russia’s TV industry, with the combined ad share of the three main broadcasters for the first time now below 50%.
Quoting figures produced by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), Kommersant reports that the First Channel, RTR and NTV claimed 49.28% of national and regional advertising in 2012-13, compared to 52.39% in 2011-2012.
This was despite the fact that the ad market for terrestrial TV channels grew by early 9% in the past year to R152.2 billion (€3.26 billion).
CTC Media’s three channels (CTC, Domashny and Peretz) also lost ad market share (16.94% v 17.22%) nationally, while other channels, including TNT, TV-3 and Pyatnitsa, gained.
Kommersant also says that sponsorship still accounts for only a small share of total revenues at most stations in Russia.
For instance, that sold in 2013 on channels represented by the sales house of Gazprom Media amounted to R2.29 billion, or 5.5% of ad revenues.
The corresponding figures at Prof Media were R285 million (3%), RTR R1.43 billion (8%) and CTC Media R1.7 billion (8%).
