Russia Today expanding fast

[BGonaSTICK]

Russia Today is a 24/7 news channel that is determined to carve a niche out for its voice.

Russia Today is in the final stages of carrying out a major research study into viewer’s opinions of the channel, and Margarita Simoniyan, its editor in chief, isn’t surprised that viewers are increasingly appreciating the channel’s all-English news coverage. Initial findings amongst European users suggest the channel is just behind Europe’s #No 1 news channel EuroNews but ahead of Sky News, Al Jazeera and France 24 in many countries.

“The goals that we set for ourselves, and the editorial demands that we recognised, have proved to be exactly what viewers want.” Russia Today (RT) is already available on six major digital TV platforms over Europe, as well as the Mid-East, North America “and soon Asia,” adds Sergey Lisnevsky, RT’s head of distribution. Russia Today is operated on a not-for-profit basis by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state-backed news agency. It went on air in December 2005, and has since launched an all-Arabic channel (Rusiya Al-Yaum).

“From the beginning we decided we would be relaying news and telling stories about Russia, and not simply giving a Russian opinion on what might be happening elsewhere in the world. This latest research seems to confirm this is exactly what people want from us. There’s plenty of breaking news that concerns Russia, of course, and we cover that. In fact our own sourced material is in considerable demand from the likes of CNN and other news stations. But there’s no way we could give a ‘Russian perspective’ on, say, the Madeleine McCain situation which has dominated news schedules in Europe this summer. So we deliberately attempt not to follow the herd in this sort of case,” said Simoniyan.

“The research also seems to suggest that viewers want more stories per news-hour. So we are going to take a look at making packages a little shorter. At the moment we have about 20 minutes of news on the hour, followed by sports, business or fashion/culture, followed usually by a feature documentary, or a talk-show, depending on the day of the week and the time of day.”

Simoniyan says their budget of about $30m annually doesn’t permit the channel to be lavish, but where they would like more cash is to fund marketing and simply alert people to the channel’s “Window on Russia” strategy. “Creating a channel with the sort of professional look and feel that viewers expect today is never cheap, but we also realise that now the major investment has been made in technology, staff and the expected costs, then it’s a question of gaining distribution, and marketing, and they may be the most expensive costs of all.”

Simoniyan says the other news channels make a “massively crowded” airspace. “Many of them are almost exactly the same, covering the same ‘Western’ news agenda, frequently using the exact same images because they are sourced from the same news agencies that are available to all of us. I am sure there are plenty of viewers who want to see something different. Our objective is to attempt a different agenda, and I think we are succeeding – and it seems viewers agree.”

Source: World Media