The OTT service Kartina TV has for the second time failed to launch in Russia.
According to Kommersant, its founder Andrei Reich disagreed on its development with Russian partners. Furthermore, its licences expired as the company did not launch a service.
Kartina TV has been distributing Russian TV channels to the Russian diaspora, though mainly in Germany, for over 10 years. As previously reported by Broadband TV News, it has also just entered into a partnership with SES to deliver Russian channels in Europe on the Astra 19.2 degrees East satellite.
A company named the National Network was formed by Kartina TV a year ago to specifically distribute the OTT service in Russia. Using the same business model as in Germany, it was expected to have 2 million subscribers by 2021.
Kartina TV also formed a company of the same name, but with partners including the National Media Group (NMG), in, 2015. NMG subsequently left the company to launch its own OTT service, named Showcase TV.
