The RBC TV business television channel was established by the Russian information agency RosBusinessConsulting (RBC). At that moment, RBC was a successful Internet web site with business information. As Rovensky mentioned in an interview with Gazeta correspondent Alexander Nakhalov, RBC once again had made an attempt to take the lead.

- How was the channel established?

- We were among the first Russian information agencies to appear on the web in 1995. Following the 1998 financial turmoil, we were the first to split information into that in free and restricted access. Before that, all information was in restricted access only. In 2002 we were the first company to do a Russian IPO. Obviously, we can continue our success story if betting on the strategy "to be number one." So, we tried to be number one in business television too.

Each news agency, and there is nothing special about RBC here, is a so-called information manufacturing plant. The Internet is, let's say, a packing line and a delivery service. In other words, it was quite a temptation for us to make the same product in a different package. The business model that we picked was exactly based on a synergy and the possibility to have various ways of distributing information. Our main competitive advantage is that we target a certain group of people interested in financial information, the latest political news that has impact on the stock market. We developed an understanding of how these people live and in which format they prefer this information to go. We said: why not do something on TV? These were our ambitions. There was no business television at that time. This niche was open and attractive. A 24-hour channel is a more complicated task compared to a weekly magazine or a daily newspaper. But we decided to try it as we understood that if we succeed we will be the number one business television channel. After the first year of broadcasting we understand that our dream may come true.

- How is RBC TV different from similar western TV channels?

- There is no way the Russian version of Euronews or CNN and certainly not Bloomberg can survive in Russia. There are way more people involved in stock trading in the USA, compared to Russia. Therefore, we targeted an average person, who is neither an oligarch, nor a worker. Among our viewers are those interested in immediate information, i.e. an information and analytical channel free from social problems, entertainment programs and soap operas. We build our television channel, to make the majority of Russian population quit saying that they haven't been watching TV for a long period of time.

- But you still do maintain partners with CNBC and CNN…

- We have no financial commitments to each other. They don't have shares in our company. We have a kind of non-property partnership, when we provide exclusive information to each other.

- Is Russia different from other countries in terms of presenting business information?

- I can give you an example. RBC TV presenters are slower than their CNBC colleagues. But the crawler moves faster on RBC TV than on CNBC and slower than on CNN. We made these adjustments in the process of broadcasting. Another example: CNN and CNBC anchors are older than ours. The reason is because the average age of business people in Western Europe and the USA is over 38. In Russia, if you put elder people on screen, viewers would think that you are trying to teach them.

- Do you manage to keep up with the forecasts made before launching the channel?

- Being a specialized business television channel we expected to attract up to 5% of the Russian population, which is around 5-10m people. These figures were mentioned in the business plan. The results of the first year of broadcasting exceeded our expectations. Today, we reach around 32m people. It is surprising that the regions, not Moscow, account for the most part of our audience. Local networks in more than 65 cities and regions of Russia re-broadcast our signal now. In addition, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Baltic states were added to our broadcasting territory in October. People in the USA, Europe, Middle East and Israel watch our channel via the Internet. We expect RBC TV to pay back in 2006, though it is clear now that we are doing better than the business plan. The aggregate revenue of the RBC group added 86% over six months. This is mainly due to RBC TV's revenue that exceeded USD7m over half a year. According to the business plan, the aggregate revenue is to reach some USD16m by the end of 2004.

- Any plans to introduce subscriber fees?

- No. We think this might have negative impact on our financial performance. RBC TV is targeted at a certain audience and its distribution area is quite limited. These two factors reduce our potential audience. If we make people pay for watching the channel there will be fewer viewers and, consequently, our ad revenues will sag.