Russian developer strengthens Chinese VOD deal

SPB TV and Shanghai Media Group (SMG) have extended their cooperation in broadcasting the latter’s VOD content worldwide.

Commenting on the development, which was announced at the World Content market and comes a year after an agreement to transfer the rights for SMG live content broadcasting (Dragon TV international) to SPB TV, SPB TV general director Kirill Filippov said: “We are glad to continue our cooperation with SMG in order to provide our viewers with interesting content from China. This new signed agreement will allow us to provide not only live content, but VOD as well, and to do so worldwide via our applications, which are available to more than 53 million people”.

Alexey Volin, Russia’s deputy minister of telecom and mass communication, added: “Chinese content broadcasting on the Russian developer’s platform proves the potential for Russian-Chinese relations in new media sphere development. It’s significant, that this agreement was signed in the year, officially called ‘the year of cooperation in the sphere of media’ by both countries”.

SPB TV started broadcasting content from China in 2013, when Xinhua information agency’s TV-channels CNC World Chinese and CNC English were launched. In 2015, Dragon TV (SMG media holding channel) was added to the application. In 2015, SPB TV signed an agreement with CNTV, Chinese Internet-television (CCTV tele-holding’s affiliate) for broadcasting its CCTV-4 (Chinese International), CCTV-9 Documentary, CCTV NEWS, CCTV Français, CCTV Español, CCTV Russian and CCTV Arabian channels.

SPB TV provides end-to-end OTT TV, IPTV and mobile TV solutions. Based in Switzerland, it has R&D headquarters in Russia and affiliates in Asia and South America.

MTS to launch OTT service

Russia’s MTS will launch an OTT service in August aimed at LG connected TV users.

According to ComNews, it has been developed by the company SPB TV and will not require customers to use any additional equipment such as STBs or to enter into new contracts.

Quoting Dmitry Solodovnikov, a spokesman for MTS, it adds that the OTT service, known as MTS TV, will offer 130 TV channels, as well as 100 full-length feature films from Miramax and series from the BBC.

Additional packages will be available for a subscription fee and the service will be accessible on smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs.

Solodovnikov also said that MTS TV should be available on all smart TV models by the end of the year.

The company is the final stages of negotiations with Samsung.

Data produced by J’son & Partners Consulting indicates that TV sales in Russia were 5.1% higher in 2014 than the previous year, with smart models accounting for around 39% of the total.

The total number of smart TVs in Russia is expected to reach 29.8 million, or 22% of the total TV installed base, by 2017.