TV channels Eurosport and Eurosport 2, retransmitted by cable and satellite operators, will be able to place advertising in their air-time, as Andrey Kashevarov, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), informed.
The Agency drafted an order to decide what could be taken as a national media product, and that was what would allow sports broadcasters gaining revenue from advertising.
We shall recall that in July 2014 the Russian Federation passed a law vetoing pay-TV channels to place advertising content starting January 1, that subsequently undermined the pay-TV market’s economy. In order to improve the broadcasters’ situation the Russian government as far back as in January 2015 introduced amendments to the Advertising Law, which allowed placing advertising only to those channels that had over 75% of the national product in their broadcasting schedule.
As Mediasat wrote before, TV channels like Universal Channel and E! Entertainment Television had suspended their operation in Russia due to the tough economic and regulatory situation.
To determine what would be considered the national media products was commissioned to the Antimonopoly Service, actually responsible for following legislative rules in the field of advertising. Just after introducing amendments in January, signed by the President of Russia, the Service went into drafting an order that would certify the compliance of products with the legislative requirements.
But even here there appear some discrepancies: the legislation clearly states that translation, dubbing, subtitling of products produced abroad is not a domestic production of the dearest national content. In addition, every broadcast of sports events by different media has its own commentator and its original synchronizing.
A public discussion of the order drafted by the Federal Antimonopoly Service was held last week, and then the Service submitted it to Ministry of Economic Development for its further evaluation. Once this initiative supported, the channels Eurosport and Eurosport 2 will be able to earn on advertising again.
Olga Paskina, CEO of Discovery Communications (manages Eurosport International Company), informed that the company would apply all its resources to develop its business, if there appear any opportunity for advertising’s come back to the pay-TV channels.
