"Renova" weaves television

The company buys regional cable television operators, Renova-Media, began expansion to Russian regions. Yesterday, the company announced the completion of the transaction on the acquisition of the St. Petersburg operator of the cable television TKS "Neva". In addition, as it became known to Gazeta, by the end of summer, Renova plans to announce the acquisition of a large cable operator in Yekaterinburg.

Prior to the acquisition of a cable operator in St. Petersburg, Renova-Media was geographically represented only in Moscow and Minsk. In the Russian capital, Renova-Media owns control packages of shares of OJSC "Moscow Telecommunications Corporation" ("Komcor") and Moscow Cablecom ("Komkor-TV"). In Minsk, she owns the Belarusian cable channel "Cosmos TV".

TCS "Neva" specializes in the provision of cable television services on Vasilievsky Island and in the Central District of St. Petersburg. Currently, the Neva TKS subscriber base is more than 40 thousand people. Subscribers of TKS "Neva" have the ability to view 30 channels of various topics.

Tatyana Tolmacheva, a leading analyst in the IKS-Consulting investment company, estimated the transaction for the acquisition of Neva TKS at $ 5 million. The director of the Renova-Media public relations department Anton Sergeyev refused to call the purchase price, hinting, however, that the price proposed by the analyst was overestimated. He also did not disclose the details of the upcoming transaction in Yekaterinburg.

“Buying a network in St. Petersburg is part of our regional development strategy,” said Renova-Media, Yuri Podachkin. “In the future, we expect to take 20-30% of the Northern capital market.”

There are no plans for the development of other regions of Russia, except for St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, Renova Media has no Renova. Analysts believe that in Yekaterinburg the company will not meet with open arms. “In Yekaterinburg, the company will face severe competition, as the market in this city is divided between Nafta-Moscow and AFK Sistema. I see no reason why go out there. The third operator will only tighten the situation in the market, ”said Tatyana Tolmacheva, a leading IKS -Consulting analyst. She believes that Renova Media was late with access to the regions. “Here (in the regions. -“ newspaper ”) there is nothing interesting left, everything is in the hands of the“ system, ”the expert says. - There are almost no finished operators in this market, and it is impractical to start building a network from scratch. Therefore, Renova-Media will not be able to get far into the regions. ”

07/10/2007 / Svetlana Kazantseva, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 124 dated 07/11/2007.