Rossiya (Moscow), September 3, 2003

The first business channel appears in Russia.

Would you like to know all economic, political and financial news, be informed of the course of trading on exchanges and receive in-depth commentaries and forecasts of analysts from the sites of events on TV? It is possible now. The first business television channel RBC TV was launched in Russia yesterday. According to its founders, the appearance of such project is very timely. Russia is seeing economic growth, greater consumer activities, the development of business activities and growing capital markets. Representatives from all business spheres have been feeling the need for precise and up-to-date financial and economic information during the day. RBC TV will have live broadcasting 18 hours a day (the other six hours will be a replay of programs). It will use remote cameras, which have never been used in Russia before, when experts from banks, exchanges and other locations will give their commentaries live. According to General Director of the television channel Artyom Inutin, the main target of the channel is "to help improve the image of Russian business."

It is worth mentioning that RBC TV actively cooperates with well-known companies such as CNN and CNBC, the world leaders in news broadcasting. At this stage of the project the channels just exchange information and run common advertising campaigns, but in the future they may come up with programs together as well. In addition, RBC TV established partnerships with other major Western agencies and television companies, among which are Reuters, APTN, NTV (Germany), Deutsche Welle and leading Russian information agencies ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti. As far as advertising is concerned, RBC TV has no plans to be on the bit of advertising and give it as much time as it needs. Six minutes per hour and not more. The rest of the time will be devoted to useful and urgent information. The channel will feature about ten programs aimed at meeting any demand of a business person.

The "News" program will be on every 30 minutes and will talk about the main events of the day. The "Markets" program is devoted to the course of trading on Russian and foreign trading floors. From the program "Morning of a Business Person," which is part of the morning programming block, you will find out what the Russian and foreign press are all about, get to know the latest fashion and business style tendencies, watch "Automotive News" and videos about high-tech in business. The program "Western Business" will cover the latest business tendencies abroad as well as expand on the activities of major companies and events that have an impact on the Russian economy. A topic program "Capital" will tell everything about the financial market of Russia and the "In the Zoom" talk show will be devoted to current occurrences and tendencies in various industries of the Russian business, voice unique business ideas and show special reports. The discussion of top news of the previous day is what the "Intrigue of the Day" program will be all about. The "Dialogue" program will feature interviews on macroeconomic topics and "Sphere of Interests" will narrate about non-standard businesses and unusual approaches in management and marketing.

$23 million were invested in the television channel, of which 75 percent came from the RBC Information Systems joint-stock company and the rest 25 percent - in private placements. The founders of the channel believe that their project will break even by the end of the second year with a payback period of 3.5 years. According to projections, the audience of the newly established channel will be 7-8 million people by the end of this year and 12 million by the end of 2004.

The core audience of RBC TV is the economically active and wealthy classes, which is natural (businessmen, bank employees and state officials of all levels). Consequently, the television channel will be mainly distributing its signal to luxury houses and regions, cottage areas, business centers and hotels. In reality, anyone can watch the channel. The only thing is that it is a satellite television and it will go in program packages of such channels as NTV+, Kosmos TV, Comcor TV and Divo-TV. In addition, the channel is broadcasted via Internet.