RUSSIAN MEDIA ASSETS ARE RISING IN PRICE QUICKLY. IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2006 ALONE, 41 TRANSACTIONS WORTH A TOTAL OF $1.1 BILLION WERE CONCLUDED ON THIS MARKET, EXPERTS CALCULATED. AMONG COMPANIES WHOSE MEDIA ASSETS STEADILY BRING HIGH PROFITS IS THE RBC MEDIA GROUP, WHICH RELAUNCHED ITS RBC DAILY PROJECT IN SEPTEMBER. NOW THE BUSINESS NEWSPAPER IS PRINTED. RBC GENERAL DIRECTOR YURY ROVENSKY TELLS ABOUT RBC'S DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY.

- Is it difficult to sell information?

- Yes, it is not easy. Russia has never known problems with production, but there have always been problems with selling. It is this problem that our company is solving now. We offer our readers all available formats, including the Internet, television, a magazine and a newspaper. In fact, having built a factory producing information, we began to implement the strategy we announced several years ago - a multi-channel delivery. We want to distribute information in an efficient and competent way. From a group of websites we have developed into a full-fledged publishing house. The business channel RBC ТV, online resources, a business magazine and a business newspaper have completely different content, which overlaps by no more than 20%. This is convenient for both our audience and our advertisers.

- Is finding sales channels the most important?

- The most important is to structure the audience clearly. Yes, we are targeting business people. But the business community is heterogeneous, and it can be structured differently: by age, geography, gender or the volume and scale of business... Or by interest. Indeed, it is not just business that interests businessmen. They have their hobbies, they travel, entertain themselves, go to restaurants and movies... Our first niche projects appeared on the Internet. And we will not forget about the global network. We do not rule out the possibility of beneficial acquisitions in the non-business Internet. And we will launch our own new projects. Among our latest projects are RBC Credit, RBC Style, RBC-Club-Event.rbc.ru and RBC Real Estate.

- The business media market is seen as quite competitive. Aren't you afraid of competition?

- On the contrary, I welcome it. We launched a full-color newspaper, and our colleagues followed suit: Kommersant became a color newspaper, and Vedomosti will adopt a multi-color palette before the end of this year. As you can see, competition raises the market to a new level. Today the business media segment is flourishing, and demand for business information is growing. Business becomes part of life for almost everyone in large cities. This is one of our main interests, one of our most popular themes. Businessmen become TV stars! There still is room for new projects in the business media niche. We are prepared for competition. We have a solid client base, about 2,500 advertisers, which is vital for projects financed exclusively through advertising. The RBC magazine started off better than we expected, which is inspiring. We have built a strong team of reporters, of whom many made their names in business journalism. Being a publishing house allows us to cut costs effectively. Firstly, projects from scratch always come at a price for editors, and we have more than 10 years of experience in business media. Secondly, our editorial boards exchange information.

- What can we expect of RBC Daily?

- The newspaper will have supplements. We will increase our print run this year, coming to the regions

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