CTC Media, a leading Russian media company listed on the NASDAQ, announced last week an agreement with GlobeCast to broadcast the international Russian-language version of CTC, “CTC-International,” via GlobeCast’s Hot Bird 8 satellite.
A subsidiary of France Telecom, GlobeCast is a global provider of content management and worldwide transmission services for professional broadcast delivery. Hot Bird 8 currently covers both western and eastern Europe as well as a number of countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
CTC-International can now be received free of charge in any country in the Hot Bird 8 satellite coverage area, a potential 120 million users – of whom some 12 million are Russian-speaking.
The move represents a considerable enlargment of the channel’s potential audience, which had previously been limited under restricted access to the USA, Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan and the Baltic states.
CTC Media will now be in a better position to attract advertisers, noted IKS-consulting analyst Konstantin Ankilov in an exchange with RIA Novosti.
