Shadow
01-06-2011, 07:04
Russia's CTC Media is expanding its Russian-language family programming distribution in the United States through carriage deals with Time Warner Cable in New York and niche satellite TV service Russian Media Group, which broadcasts throughout the U.S. The new agreements will allow CTC to reach 175,000 viewers across North America. CTC International first became available in the US on the DISH satellite network in December 2009. The move dovetails with CTC's ongoing quest to expand into international markets. It recently entered Germany through an exclusive distribution agreement with a local IPTV network, Kartina TV. That deal gives Kartina one-year rights to sub-license the network across other European IPTV networks as well. Launching in Germany marks CTC International's third launch outside of its own country, after Israel and the U.S. "We continue to develop our business outside of Russia by launching CTC International in new markets and expanding our presence in the countries of established operations," said Anton Kudryashov, CEO of CTC Media. "Our current potential audience is 12 million viewers worldwide, and we expect our subscriber base to grow several times by the end of 2011." Germany has some five million Russian speakers and the agreement gives the network an overall potential audience of around 15 million, the firm claimed. The channel offers