Kids & factual content will be our special focus in India: Dmitry Mednikov Digital Television Russia

The Chairman of the Board, Digital Television Russia, speaks about the company's expansion plans in India, the focus on kids and factual content, plans to launch channels and more

Shanta Saikia | Delhi | August 24, 2015

Dmitry Mednikov

Prasar Bharati and Digital Television Russia (DTR), Russia's leading pay-TV programmer, last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation that will set the stage for a new media era in both the countries.

This strategic alliance will focus on high quality production, marketing and distribution of content related to art, culture, trade & science, research and technology, etc. Joint production and exchange of TV programmes and related services will give audiences in both countries an unprecedented access to a rich variety of thematic entertainment and factual content.

Digital Television Russia, the commercial arm of Russia Television and Radio (VGTRK), one of Russia's leading media corporations and public broadcaster since 1990. After a presence of 25 years in the Russian market, VGTRK is now all set to expand to global pay TV market through Digital Television Russia.

In conversation with BestMediaInfo.com, Dmitry Mednikov, Deputy CEO, Chief Development Officer, Russia Television and Radio, Chairman of the Board, Digital Television Russia, speaks about the company's expansion plans in India, the focus on kids and factual content, plans to launch channels in the future and more. Excerpts:

Could you throw more light on the nature of the alliance with Prasar Bharati?

We want to work in the Indian market very much and we feel that Indian media and digital companies would also want to reach out to the Russian audience. So, as one of the fastest growing Russian media and digital businesses, we think we can interact and exchange experience, content and technologies. The idea is to provide each other with local content, produce local content and introduce both cultures to each other and earn revenues in both markets.

What makes you enter the Indian market at this point in time? What is the potential that you see in the Indian market?

It is as early as we could. Earlier we were not quite ready to enter the Indian market, now I think we are big enough and our growth in our mother market Russia is strong and we are ready to work with other markets, which was not possible in the previous years.

India and Russia has had a very long history of sharing heritage and culture right from the time of the erstwhile USSR. Now you have come here to share the content part of it. What kind of content can we expect from you?

I think our first focus would be on kids content and factual content, documentaries on nature, science and technology, history and so on. These are what prove to be interesting for international exchange.

Please give us an idea of what the current broadcast market is like in Russia.

It is growing. And it is the common issue of markets the world over, we should call them less of media companies and more of screen media companies. The development of new screens give us new possibilities, new challenges and we need to have the experience to work with the audience, not only at home or in the evenings, but also when they are on the move, in office, and even on vacations. We need to provide more and more media content which can be consumed on devices of various sizes – be the television screen, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

When you talk about the growth in the Russian broadcast market, what is this growth like?

In Russia, digital market is growing quite fast, however, the terrestrial market has stopped growing. For example, the computer games market is growing approximately 70 per cent per year, digital advertising like video advertising is growing at 25 per cent per year, and terrestrial advertising hasn't grown. So now the growth driver of the market is digital. At the same time, terrestrial is still one of the biggest, but digital is growing faster.

Today, media companies have to learn to work with different screens and provide people with more and more content, more and more technologies of monetisation. So for video companies there are more and more ways of earning money. At the same time, the audience is learning how to use these devices.

The growth of screens depends on the age of the audience. Among younger audience, the penetration is almost 100 per cent, while among the older audience the penetration is lesser. For example, in the 18-34 age group, the percentage is approximately 90 per cent.

What kind of content does the audience want to watch on their screens?

It depends on the screen – the main entertainment screen, which is the television; business and entertainment screen, which is the tablet; and entertainment and communications screen, which is the smartphone. With smartphones, most of the people are not watching video content, they are mostly playing games and using digital services. For tablets, people are watching content which doesn't require high resolution pictures or high quality sound; and for the main entertainment, people are watching shows, films for which they want good sound effects and picture quality.

In the MoU signed with Prasar Bharati, what strengths does Digital Television Russia bring to the table?

We are the fastest growing digital company in the Russian market and I think we are growing faster than any pay TV company in India, and at the same time we are based not on international content, but Russian content. We will be bringing our technology to the Indian market. In India, we see how Zee Entertainment Enterprises has been successful with its many channels in the local as well as international markets and we think we can cooperate with Prasar Bharati and for example, Zee TV in other markets, in other genres.

Are you also in talks with private satellite channels in India for tie-ups?

Yes, I am meeting with many companies and we hope that Prasar Bharati is also going to work not only with us in the Indian market, but also in the Russian market. Now the idea is to bring those markets closer and to find as many relations between different companies as possible.

We are one of the strongest players in the kids content space and have considerable franchising expertise, which we can bring to the Indian market. At the same time there several companies in Russia which are producing digital services that we are not producing and we would be glad if our Indian partners, with our help, have partnerships with other companies, and the same goes for us. We understand that there are leaders in different media and digital fields in India and we would be glad to find common ways of cooperating in India or Russia or in third markets.

How soon will you be able to bring kids content to the Indian market?

We have already started dubbing the content for the Indian market and are in the process of tackling some legal formalities. We are hoping that by late spring or early autumn in 2016 we will be able to bring the content to India.

Apart from the dubbed content, will there also be original content?

We would like to reinvest all the money that we are earning from the Indian market in the production of local content – our focus would be on local factual content and local cartoons; help create the infrastructure here for the production of local cartoons. We are one of the word leaders in pre-school cartoon products and we would like to bring that to India as well, and later also bring the content produced in India to Russia and international markets.

We have created the infrastructure for producing factual and cartoons, which would like to bring to India and also to produce factual on Indian culture, Indian history, Indian wildlife and so on.

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