The Gazprom-Media holding together with Alexander Maslyakov and Company will create the KVN TV channel. The TV channel will show archived KVN games. The right to broadcast current competitions will remain with Channel One

During the First Semi-Final of the KVN Major League. October 2011 (Photo: Vladimir Verkhovsky/TASS)

Jokes on air

The Gazprom-Media holding together with the creative association Alexander Maslyakov and Company (AMIK; Alexander Maslyakov is a long-time KVN presenter) will create the KVN TV channel, according to a Gazprom-Media statement received by RBC. The new channel will begin broadcasting on June 1, 2016.

The TV channel will show games of the KVN Major and Premier Leagues, festivals in Jurmala and Sochi, programs about KVN, reports from club events, as well as programs with the participation of KVN stars and Russian show business. Current KVN games are now shown by Channel One and, according to an AMIC representative, these rights will remain with him, and KVN TV will show archived episodes of the program. The production of new content will be handled by AMIC, which will also own the rights to the programs, a company representative told RBC.

Broadcasts of KVN games are one of the most popular programs on Channel One, according to TNS Russia data. For example, the program “KVN Alumni Meeting”, released on September 13, 2015, became the most popular among all KVN releases for the year and collected a share of 21.1% (this is the number of TV viewers of the total number in the country who watched the program at the time of broadcast). The episode of the show “The Voice,” the most popular show on Channel One, collected a share of 27.1% in the same week, and the release of the program “Let them talk” - 19% (TNS Russia data for Russia in cities with a population of over 100 thousand people among viewers over four years old).

The rights to some of the old episodes of KVN belong to the Che channel (part of the STS Media holding). A representative of AMIC explained to RBC that this channel acquired the rights to the programs “KVN for Encore” and “Highest Points,” which included clips from the best old programs. KVN TV will show old episodes of games in their entirety, so the new channel should not have problems with rights.

The KVN TV channel will be created on the technological basis of the Red Media company, which is part of Gazprom-Media, the holding company said in a statement. Red Media will develop the channel's on-air design and will also distribute the channel, including in the CIS and Baltic countries.

Money in the archive

The costs of creating KVN TV are not disclosed. An AMIC representative told RBC only that investments in the channel consist of several components (content, development of a broadcast concept, design, technical services and personnel) and that the channel, as the company plans, will pay off within several years. Advertising sales are expected to begin in 2016. A top manager of a large television holding estimates the costs of launching such a channel at $2–3 million. The launch of the CTC Love channel, which also broadcast on secondary content for the first year, cost the STS Media holding a similar amount, he knows.

A representative of Gazprom-Media told RBC that KVN TV is faced with the task of entering the basic packages of cable and cellular operators. Now the holding is holding preliminary negotiations with pay TV operators, he says. The holding does not disclose the names of these operators. A representative of NetByNet, a wired Internet and digital TV provider owned by MegaFon, told RBC that the channel is interesting to the company for its entertainment content and that the company is ready to cooperate with it.

The Gazprom-Media holding has already launched a thematic comedy channel - TNT-Comedy, which showed various projects from the TNT library - comedy shows and series, talk shows and sitcoms. In its target audience (14–44 years old), over three years of broadcasting, it reached third place among all thematic channels with a share of 6.1% (TNS Russia data for Russia for January–November 2015). at the end of 2015 Based on this channel , the TNT4 channel was created . In January 2016, he began broadcasting on several terrestrial frequencies “2x2” (also part of Gazprom-Media).

“Gazprom-Media is the leader in entertainment TV, and cooperation with AMIK will allow us to expand our offer in this segment,” the Gazprom-Media message quotes the words of the holding’s CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko. Now the holding includes five entertainment channels: TNT, Pyatnitsa, TV3, 2x2 and TNT4. Gazprom-Media does not disclose revenue data for individual channels, but sources in the holding have repeatedly told RBC that it was entertainment channels that helped the company in 2015 compensate for the slowdown in growth during the crisis.

The revenue of Gazprom-Media at the end of 2015 reached 73.6 billion rubles. , which is 2% more than a year earlier, follows from the reporting of Gazprombank. For comparison: CTC Media’s ruble revenue at the end of 2015 fell by 24%. In dollars , it fell by 50% and amounted to $350.56 million (RUB 23.7 billion at the Central Bank exchange rate as of April 1, 2016).

A new TV channel with KVN games will appear in Russia