Another American media company desires to continue operating in Russia.
The Colambus Nova Investment Company (within the Renova Group owned by the Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg) wants to acquire 80% stocks of the media conglomerate Viacom, according to RBC.
We shall recall that amendments to the law, previously adopted in the Russian Federation, will come into effect next year, reducing the foreign owners’ share in media from 50% to 20%.
Unfortunately, the parties have not revealed their deal plans yet. The representatives of the Viacom, the Renova and the Columbus Nova do not comment on anything.
The Viacom International Media Networks distributes 12 TV channels in Russia and the CIS countries, namely MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and Paramount Comedy.
The Viacom is not the only foreign company that is not eager to suspend operating on the Russian media market. Mediasat wrote before about a number of companies that were about to change their structure in order to comply with the Russian legislation. So, the first one to arrange its structure was CTC: it was initially involved in transfering its assets to Russia, but it turned out soon that it had found a buyer, UTV Media Holding owned by the Russian businessmen Alisher Usmanov and Ivan Tavrin.
The Discovery also did not want to fold its many-year operation in Russia. First, the company met Alexander Zharov, the Head of Roskomnadzor, discussing the guidelines for further operation in the country. And it became known soon, that it would set up the Media Alliance Company in partnership with the media holding National Media Group owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, in order to distribute niche channels in Russia.
We shall recall that Mediasat reported in June that the State Duma of the Russian Federation would be able to mitigate the amended Law On Mass Media.
