The Russian television distributor in Europe is preparing to launch an online TV service in Russia.

Company of Andrey Reich, founder of Kartina.TV, and businessman Eugene Romaskevich will manage it. Partners are going to distribute content in Russia on the same model as in Germany, and by 2021 they intend to connect 2 million subscribers.

Andrew Reich, the founder of the company, told “Kommersant” about the launch of Kartina.TV on the Russian market. New company “National Network” will manage the service in Russia, now it receives licenses and begins to negotiate with TV channels about partnership, he said. According to Kartoteka.ru, JSC “National Network” was registered at the end of January. Andrey Reich owns 49% of the company, 51% — Eugene Romaskevich. Earlier, TV channel “Rain” (Dozhd) called Mr. Romaskevich son-in-law of businessman Arkady Rotenberg. Source of “Kommersant” confirms this fact. Mr. Romaskevich himself refused to comment on this topic, noting that the “National Network” is his personal investment. The volume of investments in the project he does not disclose.

Eugene Romankevich told “Kommersant” that he already has 15 years of experience in the exhibition business but he didn’t invest in media before. He previously held the position of Deputy Director General of the OCE, managed the ExpoGlobus company that produces software for organizing exhibitions, and now heads “Roteks” company. It annually holds several major agricultural exhibitions in different countries, as well as the World Hockey Forum in Moscow and other events. According to Eugene Romaskevich, Andrei Reich, who helped “Roteks” with the promotion of events in Germany, was looking for partners for development of Kartina.TV in Russia and offered Mr. Romaskevich participation in the project.

This is the second attempt to launch Kartina.TV in Russia. In 2015, Andrey Reich already created a company with the same name, but with other partners. One of them was one of the country’s largest media holding “National Media Group” (NMG). NMG soon left the project, now together with “Perviy Kanal” (First channel) and VGTRK it is preparing a similar project “Vitrina TV ” — a common platform for TV channels, through which their content will be distributed on the Internet.

Aleksandr Dmitrienko, CEO of “National Network”, told “Kommersant” that the company expects to agree with TV channels on distribution by March. The service will share with them the income from subscribers and does not plan to sell advertising. In addition to channels partnership with online movie cinema ivi is expected (in Germany they have already become a partner of Kartina.TV). Ivi could not immediately comment on the participation in the project.

In Russia, there are already several OTT services that allow you to watch TV content over the Internet. Advantage of Kartina.TV — is in interface that works on all devices, said Eugene Romaskevich. “Most people still watch TV, nothing to do with it. Through Kartina.TV application it will be possible to watch TV channels on any device in good quality and, unlike other services, you can continue to watch abroad,” he explains. Now the platform is adapting to the Russian market, the commercial launch is scheduled for March, by 2021 it is planned to connect 2 million subscribers, said Mr. Romaskevich.

Kartina.TV have been distributing Russian TV channels on OTT technology for 10 years — mainly in Germany, as well as in the USA, Israel, UK and other countries where there is Russian Diaspora. It is one of the largest distributors of Russian TV abroad. The service offers more than 100 channels with the ability to view the archive for the last two weeks; you can watch them on TV via set-top box or on a computer or mobile device. Subscription in Germany costs €16.5 per month. At the same time Kartina.TV was repeatedly accused of piracy. In 2015 “Perviy Kanal. World wide web” has announced that the service distributes its content illegally. But after that, the parties signed a contract on retransmission.

“Kartina.TV have an established reputation in foreign markets, it will be interesting to see with what the company decided to enter the market of legal content in Russia”,— says Ivan Grodetsky, CEO of Okko.

Russia has a lot of players both on TV and in VoD, so the newcomer should have strong competitive advantages, support of large film studios and a solid marketing budget, he noticed.

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