Argumenty I Fakty (Moscow), September 3, 2003

On September 2, the company RosBusinessConsulting launched a business television channel RBC TV. General Director of RBC Yury Rovensky expanded on the core of the new television in an interview with Argumenty I Fakty.

- First of all, tell me, please, on what frequencies can we find RBC TV?

- RBC TV will be distributing its signal in all possible ways - via Internet, satellite and cable. RBC TV can be available to those who have NTV+ and Kosmos-TV satellite dishes installed as well as to viewers connected to such municipal cable networks as Comcor-TV and Divo-TV. Beginning September 2 our signal became available in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Today, we are at the final stage of completing deals with 12 cities with a population over one million that will begin re-broadcasting RBC TV's signal as soon as all the paperwork concerning the licensing of these kinds of activities is done.

- What is your core viewer?

- The channel is mainly oriented at business people. We have seen numerous cases lately when ordinary people were looking for business information. Not just businessmen were watching the latest events with YUKOS and oligarchs. Remember the 1998 default had an impact on everyone. The absence of timely and true information (or its unavailability) resulted in a great panic. Potential viewers of our channel are not only professional businessmen and top managers, but also everyone who has money.

- How are you going to fill the airtime?

- Morning hours will be devoted to urgent information: announcements of top news and information, for example, on closing results from the US stock market. RBC TV broadcasts live and efficiently covers everything that is happening. We had to build serious infrastructure in order to make it possible. Except for flyaway cameras installed in offices of major banks, investment companies, ministries and departments, industrial groups and business Mass Media, we have over 20 remote cameras. The only way to get viewers watch the television channel is to make sure that it has a maximum variety of opinions.

Of course, most of the airtime will be news blocks. There will be an unusual number of news blocks - every 30 minutes during active broadcasting (a total of 36 news blocks). During night hours, from 1:00 a.m. till 7:00 a.m., the channel will feature special programs recorded earlier as well as replay the most interesting programs of the day and final news blocks. Except for news, there will be specialized analytical programs and discussions: "Markets," "In Focus," "Intrigue of the Day," "Capital," "Sphere of Interests," and "Economic Dialogues."

There is also a program devoted to cultural life: what plays, concerts, premier shows and other cultural events are on, what to pay attention to. It is natural that we won't have any movies and entertainment programs on our channel. But there will be plenty of information regarding those things that have a direct impact on business.

- Why did you choose TV format? All business people have access to the Internet.

- The Internet is quite a convenient way of distributing urgent information within the business community. Over 1.5 million people visit our resource on the Internet, mostly people involved in active share trading and dealing. But the RBC agency just provides facts without giving any comments on what is happening. Television format allows having not simply news in the form of a news line, but a broader and more urgent information supplemented with a picture. This means a more emotional understanding of what is going on. And I believe that business is quite an emotional thing.

At the same time, we believe that business community that appeared in Russia has finally reached its critical size, when business-oriented television becomes economically reasonable. We hope that the channel will break even by the end of the second year of broadcasting. We have already signed an impressive number of advertising sales contracts totaling $2.7 million.

- Such a global project surely cannot do without Western partners. Do you have any?

- We have two cooperation agreements signed for this project with two leading world companies CNN and CNBC. This is not property cooperation (in other words, RBC TV is a 100 percent subsidy of RBC) but rather information cooperation, including the exchange of content and that goes as far as to the coordination of the way materials are presented on screen.

Our partners rendered just methodological and training support to us. And the TV team itself, which includes over 500 people, is represented by Russian professionals. The skeleton of the television came from VGTRK, the First Channel, REN-TV and TVS. Artyom Inutin, who has been with RBC for more than seven years, became the General Director of RBC TV. He possesses of all necessary expertise in the sphere of arranging content and has a clear understanding what news is news for business people.