Russian Media Industry News

Independent Media Sanoma Magazines acquired a 55% stake in Russian magazine publisher Lux Media (aka Global Media Group). The deal will be closed in the second quarter of 2008. IM has an option to acquire the remaining 45% until 2012.

Lux Media publishes Collezioni (fashion), Homes Overseas (real estate) and Wedding (weddings). The founder of Lux Media, Artyom Kind, will remain General Director of the publisher.

The acquisition will strengthen IM’s position in the luxury segment of the magazines market.

Source: Independent Media Sanoma Magazines

Arkadij Gajdamak, owner of «Obyedinyonnye Media» (United Media) media group, transferred a share of 15% of the company to several top managers. OM owns «Business FM» and «Kino FM» radio stations, the «Business & Financial Markets» daily business newspaper and «Populyarnye Finansy» (Popular Finances) journal. Revenues of USD 5 million have been disclosed for 2007.

Source: Kommersant

Izdatelskij Dom Rodionova announced that effective end of May the Russian edition of «BusinessWeek» will be closed down. Sources at the publisher cited «weak financial results» as the main reason for discontinuing the journal.

IDR started the project in September 2005. According to TNS Russia, the weekly readership of «BusinessWeek Russia» was 44,2 thousand as of October 2007.

Source: RBC Daily

Russian news agency «Interfax» and LexisNexis announced about their agreement to co-operate on the Russian market. Users of Interfax’s «System of Complex Analysis of News» (SCAN) will be able to access the full LexisNexis database. SCAN was introduced at the end of 2007 for a monthly fee of RUR 10.000 (about EUR 295).

Media holding «Prof-Media» announced that it appointed Alexej Efimov as the General Director of «MTV Russia». The music TV channel has been acquired by «Prof-Media» last year for USD 360 million.

Source: Kommersant

Russia’s biggest publisher of advertisement-financed trade magazines «Delovoj Mir» acquired «Torgovoye Oborudovaniye v Rossii», a trade magazine on retail trade equipment. The deal is said to be in the range of RUR 20 million, with estimated annual revenues of the journal of RUR 10 million.

Source: Kommersant

Italian RCS MediaGroup and Russian publisher Global Media Group (Collezioni, Homes Overseas, Wedding) have signed a licensing agreement in relation to SPORTWEEK, the weekly magazine of La Gazetta dello Sport, for the creation of a multimedia sports platform in Russia. The agreement concerns the launch of the Russian edition of SPORTWEEK in the first half of 2008 and the development of sports website sportweek.ru.

Source: Kommersant

According to an expert panel of CNews, advertising revenues of Russian internet companies reached a new high of USD 399.8 million in 2007. The bulk of the revenues comes from banner advertising (USD 206.9 million). The top 3 companies in terms of advertising revenue are Yandex (USD 167 million), RBK (USD 88 million) and Rambler (USD 65 million), all pure Russian players. Google comes in at #6 with USD 10 million.

Source: Kommersant

According to the Expert Council of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters the Russian market for radio advertising grew 35% to USD 620 million in 2007. USD 300 million of it were spend on the Moscow market. Although Moscow is still the biggest market, regional markets grew faster (40%) than the the capital’s market (30%).

Source: RBC-Daily

Independent Media Sanoma Magazines acquired entertainment portal «Webpark» for an undisclosed amount. Market experts put a valuation cap at USD 400 million for the portal.

Source: Kommersant