Producers of Russian thematic channels are not satisfied with the fact that their foreign competitors, including Discovery, receive more money from paid TV operators. The idea to revise pricing is promoted by “Digital TV” Company of VGTRK and “Rostelecom”, which also distributes “My planet” channel. Company proposes to link cost of channel to its audience, which should be monitored by a single meter. Not all operators are ready to support the idea.

The idea of “mandatory use of data of authorized organization” in determining the cost of content in pay TV contained in the draft of the concept of Info-communication code (“Kommersant” has it). It is developed by Media Communication Union (MCU), which unites the largest media holdings and Telecom operators, as a basis for medium-term regulation of the industry. According to the materials of MCU, now there is discrimination in the industry: 80-90% of budgets are from paid channels with imported content.

Info-codex is developed FOR MCU by Boston Consulting Group, which added a paragraph about common system of determining the value of pay channels on the initiative of “Central television” (CTV), told “Kommersant” Kirill Lysko, General Director of CTV. “The idea of creating
media currency similar to an advertising one, by which it would be possible to sell product to Telecom operators, will be tied to TV
measurements and will show that it is necessary to pay that much for Mult channel, and that much for Discovery”, he explains. The imbalance in the cost of content is a problem for CTV, says Mr. Lysko: “for Russian channels, comparable by audience with channels with foreign content, operators usually pay significantly less or often many times less.”

Anna Lander, representative of MCU, told “Kommersant” that the issue of pricing of pay TV was not discussed at MCU level.

The proposal has not yet become an official position of MCU, confirms Kirill Lysko: Union Board must vote for it to happen.

The largest distributor of popular foreign channels – is structure of National Media Group (NMG), in packages of which — Discovery, Animal Planet, TLC, Eurosport, Cartoon Network, CNN and others. “Worldwide prices for content for pay TV are formed through exclusive content and strong brands. Discovery produces content that can only be viewed on pay TV. Most of the Russian thematic channels are built on secondary content: they repackage broadcasted content, which can be viewed on the Internet, so it is worth different money,”— said “Kommersant” representative of the NMG.

Disputes between operators of pay TV and producers of channels arise regularly. For example, “AKADO” was temporarily closed channels of Viasat; from the end of 2016 “Tricolor TV” is not broadcasting Discovery due to the fact that they failed to agree on a price. This happens because the pricing “is almost random”, says Mikhail Demin, General Director of “NTV-plus”. “Content owners often claim a disproportionately high share in allocation of funds. An actual example — in one of our packages, owner of five channels from 17 claims a share in the budget of more than 80%, and we are so far from understanding that we consider the scenario to stop cooperation,” he said.

There were cases when the leading operators of pay TV refused to cooperate with anchor channels, but this caused dissatisfaction of subscribers and reduced connections, says interlocutor of “Kommersant” in another major operator. Therefore, it is not always correct to get attached to the quantitative indicators in determining the cost of content; “quality, strength of the brand, willingness of subscribers to pay more is also important,” he said. Thus, Discovery package costs to operator an average of $0.05–0.1 per month, says an employee of one of the operators, Russian channels are often distributed in networks for free.

System proposed by CTV may be Advisory, as the market regulates itself, according to “Tricolor TV”. At the same time, there are nuances in measuring the audience of pay TV, adds Ulyana Rasskazova, representative of the operator: Mediascope measures it only in cities with a population of more than 100 thousand, where the proportion of people with higher education is higher. But in small cities, where there are no measurements, audience is different: it has lower interest in Discovery, sports and children’s channels and higher — in entertainment and film. Operator and broadcaster should be able to decide for themselves what content is relevant and what price they are willing to pay, notes MS. Rasskazova.

Vladimir Karpenko, director of the Department of strategic marketing and business development of “AKADO” supports “the idea of colleagues to use rating in assessing the cost of TV content.” “Pay-TV market is quite saturated and consolidating, but we do not see any significant growth. The market is characterized by low ARPU. This should also be taken into account when assessing the cost of content,” he believes.

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