Russian business gets own TV channel

By Alexander Koliandre BBC Russian service

The channel hopes to reach millions

Russia's first business news TV channel, RBCTV, has gone on air promising to broadcast round-the-clock news and business-related programmes but sceptics say the venture might be a bit premature.

Launch of the private channel had been planned for some time.

Pilot programmes started almost a year ago, which is a long lead time for any broadcaster and virtually unheard-of in Russia's "get it hot" media industry.

RossBizinesConsulting (RBC), the company behind the channel, was Russia's first successful business consultancy.

It later established itself as one of the country's better news agencies and was among the first firms to list on the local stock market.

Good signs

For its TV venture, RBC has managed to recruit a team of respected journalists - not a straightforward matter in a country where, after clampdowns on independent news organisations, state-controlled media dominates.

The venture was financed by cash raised by selling shares in the mother company, RBC. An additional $13m came from private investors, mostly from Germany.

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The people behind the project aim to make it profitable within two years.

That aim is also unusual in Russia, where the chief purpose of a media company is commonly not to make money, but to play a part in a larger political chess game.

The signs are good so far, with the company managing to sell 85% of its advertising slots for the year ahead, before it started broadcasting.

But several obstacles remain before RBCTV will be able to claim that it is the local equivalent of Bloomberg TV, the successful US business broadcaster.

Public distrust

The first is technical. Although RBC is targeting as many as four million viewers, the two satellites and two cable companies that it relies on can reach only 300,000 TV sets.

A source in the company admits that the number of permanent viewers will struggle to reach 50,000.

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Even if the company manages to widen its availability, there are hardly millions more who will be interested in watching.

 While in the US every third household owns stocks and shares, many Russians still prefer to tuck their savings under their mattresses.

The stock market might be booming, but it is still no larger than, for example, the Dutch stock market, added to which it is dominated by a handful of oil and energy companies and just a handful of active traders.

And public distrust of finance and financial institutions is widespread.  

Long haul

According to a recent survey only 20% of Russians seeking a loan would ask a bank rather than a friend or neighbour.

RBCTV promises round the clock news

Although, on the face of it, there appears little demand for business TV broadcasting in Russia, RBC is hoping it is supply that matters.

In the early 1990s when Russia began its painful transition from communism to a market economy, its first business newspaper, Kommersant, was published.

At that time, it was something of a laughing stock - the country was almost starving and the number of potential readers - beyond those interested in get-rich-quick schemes - was negligible.

But after a turbulent decade of reforms, the newspaper, owned by exiled mogul Boris Berezovsky, is one of the most popular in the country and proudly claims that it has created its own market and moulded its readers.

Perhaps the pioneering RBCTV should be preparing itself for an equally long haul.