Investment in content resulted in Russia’s Gazprom Media posting a an operating loss in the first half of this year.
Kommersant reports that the loss amounted to R220 million (€3.02 million), as opposed to an operating profit of R489 million in the corresponding period in 2015.
It adds that aside from the “reinforced” investment in content incurred in the launch of the new TV channel Match TV, which made its debut in November 2015, the loss was also attributable to more spend on content for the established station NTV.
However, Gazprom Media’s revenues increased by 25.3% in H1 to R38.49 billion, which was a much better performance than the market as a whole.
The increase was helped by growth in the Russian TV ad market market (+17%) in the first half of this year.
