Russia’s longest-established DTH platform NTV-Plus could be split into a number of smaller companies.
According to Vedomosti, its owner Gazprom Media, together with consultants, have been working on developing a model for NTV-Plus and concluded that it could be separated into three businesses.
These would be operational, namely providing access to pay channels; the production and distribution of sports content; and the production and distribution of (other) content.
Although such a move would not solve NTV-Plus’ problems, the new units could provide more growth opportunities.
NTV-Plus was launched in 1996 and was initially positioned as a high-end service.
In the last few years, it has attempted to become more accessible to viewers.
It ended 2014 with 850,000 subscribers, only a fraction claimed by the market leader Tricolor TV and still a long way behind Orion Express.
