The Russian station Ren TV has entered into an agreement with VKontakte, the country’s leading social media network.
According to Kommersant, content from Ren TV was until now only legally placed on Google and YouTube.
It adds that VKontakte users will now be able to watch any programmes from Ren TV free of charge, with funding for the service obtained from embedded advertising.
Data produced by TNS Russia shows that VKontakte had 49.6 million users aged 12-64 in July this year, of which 3.2 million accessed TV services.
Users of VKontakte can already access Channel One, RTR, Russia Today, TVC, Zvezda (‘Star’), CTC Media and the social media network RuTube.
The latter is owned by Gazprom Media and has partnered with VKontakte since March last year.