Although Russia may be feeling increasingly isolated internationally, life goes on for its dynamic TV industry.
Just this week we learned that MTS, one of the country’s leading mobile operators and also its third largest pay-TV provider, has secured a licence to begin broadcasting via satellite. If all goes according to plan, it will launch a service, employing the ABS-2 satellite, which covers the whole of Russia bar the Arctic, in Q4 this year.
Further details are at this stage sketchy. However, we do know that the licence was actually awarded by Roskomnadzor to a company named Digital Broadcasting, which is affiliated to MTS and will use its brand name for the new DTH platform. Digital Broadcasting already operates a service that delivers HDTV to cars, while MTS’ pay-TV offer includes a mobile TV service with over 100 channels, accessible to viewers via smartphones and tablets.
MTS will enter an highly competitive DTH market in which Tricolor TV is the undisputed leader, with Orion Express, Raduga TV and of course the long-established NTV-Plus also key players.
Interestingly, Tricolor TV made the news this week when it wrote an open letter to a senior minister, criticising him for misrepresenting the company. In short, he said its business was based on equipment sales – something Tricolor TV argued was nothing further from the truth, with its focus being very much on content production and distribution.
While such criticism may be quite common behind the scenes, it is not often seen or heard in public – certainly not in the Russian media.
Two announcements by CTC Media, one of Russia’s leading commercial broadcasters, also caught the eye this week. The first, in its latest set of results, predicted that the TV ad market would grow by up to 5% this year. Given the deteriorating economic situation, which is beyond the industry’s control, this is probably an optimistic forecast.
The second was that the transition to digital broadcasting in Russia will now be completed in 2019 rather than next year. This will result in huge financial savings for CTC Media, which has just agreed terms for the carriage of its flagship channel CTC and thematic service Domashny on the second multiplex.
