The infrastructure for Russia’s second DTT multiplex will only be fully in place in 2019 rather than next year, as had been previously planned.
This will allow CTC Media, one of the country’s leading commercial broadcasters, to save more than R5 billion (€104.9 million) in operating costs up to 2019.
According to CTC Media, it has reached agreements with RTRS establishing the terms and conditions for the carriage of CTC, its flagship channel, and the thematic channel Domashny on the second multiplex.
Under the new terms, CTC Media will pay R185 million exclusive of VAT this year, compared to a previous estimate of R900 million.
The second multiplex will start broadcasting in the second half of this year to cities with a population of over 50,000.
Between 2015 and 2018, the infrastructure will be expanded to cover cities with a population of over 10,000 and in 2018 RTRS will roll out the infrastructure to serve cities with population under 10,000.
Starting from 2019, RTRS will put into operation a complete infrastructure required to broadcast in cities with population under 50,000.
Yuliana Slashcheva, CEO of CTC Media, commented, “The active stance of CTC Media and coordinated effort of all market players helped to ensure the revision of digitisation program schedule, with its full launch now postponed from 2015 to 2019. This change will help the holding to save more than R5 billion on operating costs until 2019. It is a very positive development for CTC Media and the whole TV industry as we now got some time to prepare for transition to digital and money to invest in high-quality content”.
Sergey Petrov, chief broadcasting officer of CTC Media, added, “The revised schedules of the digitisation program and the payments from the participants of the second multiplex to RTRS will balance the interests of the state and broadcasters, and will contribute to stable development of the industry. The new program implementation schedule will improve the economy of media businesses while enabling a phased roll-out of nationwide digital broadcasting infrastructure”.
