Media World: Signed Events in 2015 according to Vedomosti

The well-known business publication summed up the outgoing year by presenting to the public its version of the most memorable events that occurred in the media market over the past 12 months.

Deal of the year
The most significant deal of the year, according to Vedomosti journalists, is the deal to sell Avito’s popular domestic free ad service to Naspers, a large South African media group. The latter increased its stake in the project to 68%, paying $ 1.2 billion for additional shares. Up to this point, the foreign media holding owned a 17% stake in Avito. In addition, Naspers valued domestic service at $ 2.7 billion. Despite Avito's relatively modest revenue in 2014 ($ 76.5 million), a well-known media group expects to make money on the Russian project in the future, largely due to the introduction of ad placement fees.

Future deal of the year
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In the summer it became known that the state enterprise Gosconcert plans to get the Russian Medigroup headed by the Russian Radio project, allegedly making a purchase offer to the main owner of the RMG IFD Capital. The estimated amount of the transaction is 6-7 billion rubles, which the State Concern plans to borrow from VTB Bank, and the latter, in turn, has declared its readiness to provide the necessary funds. The scandal broke out after the plans of the potential owners of Russian Radio, led by the founder of the Federation Foundation Vladimir Kiselev, were leaked to the network. Ostensibly, the latter promised Vladimir Putin to create a “patriotic media holding” on the basis of the RMG. Moreover, Mr. Kiselev has already joined the board of directors of RMG with his wife, singer Elena Sever, although there is no official information about the deal.

Trial of the year

Such can be considered the confrontation of search giants - the domestic "Yandex" and "international" Google in the struggle for the Russian users of mobile devices based on Android. Yandex complained about the policy of the American Corporation in the (Federal Antimonopoly Service) FAS regarding the pre-installation of competitors' applications on smartphones and tablets, stunned by domestic officials with the need to understand technical intricacies. Those sided with the "countryman", but Google filed an appeal. “Yandex,” however, did not stop at this and complained about the actions of the “corporation of good” to the antitrust authorities. How it all ends - is still unknown.

Purpose of the year

In the last month of the outgoing year, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly established the position of “adviser on the Internet,” appointing to her the founder of the Liveinternet statistics service, German Klimenko. Thus, the head of state informally confirmed the opinion of experts who noted the proximity to the power of the Internet entrepreneur. The latter, however, denies any "special" relations with the government.

Resignation of the year

The head of NTV, Vladimir Kulistikov, who earned the respect of the leaders of other federal channels and President Vladimir Putin, thanks to his tough policy of doing business, left his post in July after a series of conversations about health and changing the policy of the channel. This event turned out to be logical and at the same time unexpected for the domestic media market.

Project of the year

Journalists of "Vedomosti" give this title to the free sports TV channel "Match TV", which appeared on TV this fall. The CEO of Gazprom-Media and the former Chairman of the Olympic Committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, invested huge amounts of money in the project and gave the position of general producer to the famous TV host Tina Kandelaki, which caused a storm of criticism from specialists and television viewers. Let's see where the channel will lead to such an ambiguous policy.