TV Channel Loses Distribution, Looks To Friends

Michael Hedges February 6, 2014 Follow on Twitter

Broadcasters can fall foul of regulators, even public opinion, for touching sensitive subjects. There can be fines and worse. Where broadcasting is under one thumb or another viewers search high and low for anything interesting, maybe controversial, sometimes annoying. But bland TV is never threatening.

Russia’s TV Rain has lost almost all cable and satellite distribution, effectively cutting its reach by 90%, from 17.4 million to 2.5 million. Seven cable and satellite operators “suspended” TV Rain in the last week with little or no notice. The board of Tricolor TV said it was cutting off TV Rain effective February 10th for “inadequacies in editorial policy,” reported vedomosti.ru (February 3). Tricolor TV has a market share for satellite delivered pay-TV of 39%, Russia’s largest single operator.

Those “inadequacies” stem from the Dilettants talk show broadcast on January 27th on which viewers were asked, through the power of social media, whether or not lives would have been saved during the World War II Siege of Leningrad had the Soviet Army surrendered. The question was deleted from the website after 15 minutes but conservative Russians expressed outrage. January 27th was the 70th anniversary of the 872 day Siege of Leningrad during which more than a million Soviet troops and another million civilians died.

”These questions and statements can be interpreted as insulting to war veterans and residents of besieged Leningrad,” said regulator Roscomnadzor deputy director Maxim Ksenzova to RAI Novosti. The regulator, however, sent a warning letter without sanctions. Russian media watchers, in and out of the country, suspect collusion between authorities and the cable/satellite operators. Some also suspect authorities are still pouting over TV Rain’s investigation of big houses owned by big politicians. And, too, when Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were released under an amnesty decree from President Vladimir Putin in December their first live interview was broadcast on TV Rain.

To counter objections, presumably, cable operators are now offered zero carriage fees. “We are willing to drop distribution fees so as not to lose advertising revenues,” said investor Alexander Vinokourov at a press conference, quoted by MediaSapiens (February 4). “It is not impossible to keep the TV channel.”  Distribution fees are about 20% of TV Rain’s income, he explained.

Programs on TV Rain can best be described as anti-establishment. The station bills itself as “the TV channel for those who do not give a damn” and “the optimistic channel”.  It’s been on-the-air since 2010, an outgrowth of alternative radio channel Silver Rain. TV Rain – TV Dozhd, in Russian – has won awards from the Russian Television Academy. Repeatedly denied DTT frequencies, the channel introduced subscription access in 2013.

Without robust distribution TV Rain faces an uncertain future. “Our channel has quite a lot of friends,” said Mr. Vinokourov to lenta.ru (February 4), optimistic like the channels’ slogan “and many called to offer some form of assistance. And frankly we hope our friends, those who love the channel, those who understand that its existence is important will be able to help us.”

See also in ftm Knowledge

Media in Russia

Media in Russia is big business and big politics. Media companies are consolidating as they move into new media and new territories. At the same time independence is still questioned. It's all changing. ftm looks at media in Russia and its neighbors, includes Resources, 124 pages. PDF file (January 2012)

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