A draft law that will limit the level of foreign ownership in Russian OTT services to 20% is now with the country’s State Duma.
Kommersant reports that it will impact services whose daily audience in a month exceeds 100,000, or 20,000 in any one region of the country.
It will therefore affect Ivi, Okko and Megogo, three of Russia’s leading OTT platforms, which have market shares of 31%, 19% and 10% respectively.
Although the proposed legislation was initially due to come into effect on March 1, 2017, the version now being considered by the Duma has had the date put back by three months.
The legislation has been submitted by the Media Communications Union (MKS), which brings together Russia’s largest telcos and media holdings.
A spokesman for the union said the three-month delay had been put in to give OTT platforms sufficient time to become fully compliant with the proposed ownership limit.
Russia’s legal online video market grew by 32% to R3.4 billion (€49.4 million) in 2015, with its funding obtained from advertising (R2 billion) and user fees (R1.4 billion).
