Russia’s leading pay-TV operator Tricolor has pulled back from withdrawing 33 TV channels from Gazprom-Media from its offer at the beginning of February.
Kommersant reports that talks between the two parties continue despite difficulties in agreeing the cost of a new contract.
Tricolor currently offers its subscribers around 270 channels, with those from Gazprom-Media obtained from the latter’s subsidiary Red Media. They include a number of sports channels under the Match brand.
It is understood that the talks are unlikely to be affected by difficulties surrounding Tricolor and the distribution of channels obtained via Vitrina TV.
In a separate development, Gazprom-Media has announced that search engines removed three times as many links to pirated resources containing its video content in 2019 compared to the previous year.
This was made possible by signing an anti-piracy memorandum, developed with support from the regulator Roskomnadzor, in November 2018.
This month the memorandum was extended until January 31, 2021.