The owner of the Goose Goose Films studio, former marketing director of the STS TV channel (flagship channel of the STS Media holding), David Kocharov, has been appointed general producer of Russia's largest online cinema ivi (37% share - TMT Consulting data), the general director told Vedomosti video service Oleg Tumanov.

Read on vedomosti.ru David Kocharov Photo: Instagram @BigTastyMan

In this status, Kocharov himself explained to Vedomosti, he will oversee ivi originals (the division responsible for producing its own content) and generally be responsible for the release and promotion of exclusive films and TV series for ivi. Kocharov said that he has not been working for STS since September .

Information about Kocharov’s departure from the channel was confirmed by the director of strategic communications at STS Media, Kim Belov - he assured that this happened by mutual consent. Natalya Abramochkina, who held a similar position on the Friday channel, part of Gazprom Media, has already been appointed to the post of STS Marketing Director.

Kocharov worked as a production director for the Comedy Club (2013–2017), and was the director of the third season of “Sweet Life,” which aired on TNT (Gazprom Media holding) in 2016. Average share of seven episodes among viewers 11–44 years old (the broadcaster’s target audience), according to the research company Mediascope, amounted to 15.3% (of the viewers who were at the TV screen at that moment), the average share of TNT itself in 2016 was only 11.4%.

The owner of Goose Goose Films participated in the creation of projects for STS , but they were not successful. For 16 episodes of the series “Big Game”, which STS showed in August and September 2018, the average share in the broadcaster’s target audience (10–45 years old) was 8.4%, and the average daily share of the entire channel, according to Mediascope, was 9 % in August and 10.2% in September.

The average share of episodes of the “Weekend Show” program, another project on STS , where Kocharov is listed as one of the general producers, in 2018 amounted to 7.6% of the channel’s target audience, and the average daily share of the channel was 9.3%. Shows of the same program in January–July 2019 attracted 6.8% of all those watching TV at that moment; the average daily share of STS for the specified period was 9.1%.

“Attracting a television producer is recognition of the competitiveness and huge potential of video services,” says Tumanov. The CEO of ivi promised that in the coming year the online cinema will spend 1 billion rubles on exclusive content.

The production of films and TV series for ivi will be carried out not only by Goose Goose Films, but also by third-party film companies and producers, Kocharov told Vedomosti. He also described the main difference between producing content for television and the Internet: network content has no restrictions on either timing or format.

“ivi will have experimental content, for example, interactive series,” Kocharov suggested, but did not give details, except that ivi is working on three full-length films, with five series in development.

Internet companies have already hired TV producers to create content. In May, it became known that the former chief producer of the Friday TV channel, Nikolai Golovin, would be filming exclusive shows for Yandex.Ether.

Other large Russian online cinemas also promised to develop the direction of producing their own content. In particular, Okko, the second largest Russian video service with a market share of 19% (data from TMT Consulting), and Megogo, occupying the third position (together with Amediateka) with a market share of 9%.

Ivi found a general producer on television