Amedia Amedia

Russian film company. One of the largest producers of television films, TV series and programs in Russia.

As of June 2012, the company annually produces 500 to 800 hours of content from various genres - dramas, detectives and thrillers, romantic comedies and sitcoms.

Aktivs

As of June 2012, the company's assets include:

Film complex "Media City"

As of October 2014, Media City Studio, the largest private film and television studio in Russia, with a total area of ​ ​ 42,000 square meters, includes 16 shooting pavilions with a total area of ​ ​ 13,000 square meters and a full range of services for the production of television series, feature films, music videos and commercials. Only Glavkino near Moscow can compete with it in size (total area - 33,000 sq. M.), But the load of Amedia is much higher.

All pavilions have a high level of sound insulation and full technical equipment. The large number and variety of lighting equipment is able to ensure the solution of any artistic tasks in all pavilions of the studio.

Amedia Music

Amedia Music was established in April 2006 to produce and fill AMEDIA's projects. Permanent partners of the company are Russian and world majors, TV channels and radio stations.

Avatar Film

The film company was created in 1998 by producer Anatoly Sivushov on the basis of the Stunt Film Development Fund. This is one of the few companies working in film production today, which has passed through the period of the collapse of cinema in Russia and has experience in the production of complex, high-budget films.

AMEDIA TV Channel

In June, 2011 Amedia launched her own round-the-clock TV channel AMEDIA, which is broadcast through satellite and cable channels in Russia and the CIS countries. The broadcast network of the channel consists mainly of series and programs of its own production.

Products

Since its founding, the company has annually released a national television hit that makes you talk about yourself:

• Teleroman "Poor Nastya" is the first project of the company. It was a great success in Russia and was sold to 25 countries of the world, including to the homeland of the genre in Latin America.
• The first Russian sitcom "My Beautiful Nanny" withstood 6 repetitions during one season!
• 200 episodes of the TV man "Don't Be Born Beautiful" were watched daily by more than 20 million viewers in Russia and the CIS countries throughout the year.
• The TV man "Tatyana's Day" who took place on Channel One during the year was the leader in the top of the best programs of the week. In 2007, "Tatyana's Day" became one of the five highest-rated TV series in the world.
• Well, the real TV sensation of 2011 is the mystical thriller "Closed School," the first and second seasons of which successfully passed on the STS channel. In early 2012, the rights to show the series were sold to Kazakhstan and Belarus.

History and Performance Indicators

2023

Revenue growth by 12.6% to 5.4 billion rubles

The streaming of TV series and films "Amediateka" in 2023 raised 5.4 billion rubles, which is 12.6% more compared to the previous year. The net profit of the company (LLC "A Series") during this time increased by about four times and reached 2.6 billion rubles. This is evidenced by data in accordance with Russian accounting standards (RAS), published in April 2024.

According to Interfax, citing materials from A Series LLC, the company's profit from sales at the end of 2023 amounted to 3.45 billion rubles, having tripled compared to the profit a year ago.

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Unsplash

  Market participants interviewed by RBC named several factors that contributed to the growth of revenues of Amediatek and other video services in 2023:

• the development of the ecosystems that own most online cinemas;
• increasing interest in watching Russian content;
• increasing the time that users spend watching TV shows;
• an increase in the number of subscriptions in one person;
• technological development of Russian video platforms (in particular, the introduction of children's accounts, availability on various gadgets and improvement of the recommendation system);
• production of series and other original content.

According to analysts, which are given in RBC's article of March 15, 2024, in 2023 Amediateka earned 26.9% of revenue in the Licensing and Partnership segment (this takes into account revenues from partner integrations, sales of content and its release in traditional film distribution on the big screen) on the Russian video services market. The entire segment in 2023 grew by 30%, to 14.2 billion rubles.

According to TMT Consulting, Amediateki's share in the Russian video services market in 2023 was 5%. The number of paid users at the platform increased by 60% thanks to foreign content.^[1]

Appointment of Vadim Sokolovsky as CEO of Amedia Production

On November 13, 2023, Vadim Sokolovsky officially became the new general director of Amedia Production, which is one of the largest producers of series, films and television programs in Russia. He replaced Marina Sidorova, who had headed Amedia Production since June 2015. She left the company "to develop her own business projects," according to the Amedia Production Telegram channel. Read more here.

2016

According to the results of 2016, the revenue of the Amediateka online cinema increased by 112% to 600 million rubles. Net revenue is estimated at 400 million rubles, Vedomosti writes with reference to Denis Gorshkov, general director of the service and Amedia TV. Taking into account the TV segment, the company's revenue amounted to 1.3 billion rubles, which is 40% more than in 2015. More than 600 thousand paid subscribers of premium services in 2016.

2014

Closing the Amedia 1 and Amedia 2 channels

In July 2014, it became known that the television holding Amedia intends to close two of its TV channels at once, the head of the company, co-owner Alexander Akopov, said in an interview with Kommersant. The Amedia 1 and Amedia 2 channels run on an advertising model. As a result of a bill passed in early July banning advertising on paid TV channels, they came under attack. Akopov himself considers such a forced restructuring "useful."

Instead of two closing channels, Amedia will launch a new one, distributed by subscription. It will show content from sources like Amedia Premium (American HBO, Showtime, Fox, Starz and other majors the company already works with), but will focus not on premieres, but on classic series like The Sopranos, Rome and Deadwood. Russian television series may also be included on its air. The exact launch date of the channel, its name and subscription cost will be known by September 2014.

Another TV channel within the company - Amedia Premium - will continue its work according to the a la carte model: a subscription to it in July 2014 can be purchased separately (for 99 rubles per month), and not in a package with other channels. 240 thousand subscribers are connected to it. Also in the management of "Amedia" is the Internet service Amediateka.

Changes in Amedia's product portfolio are associated with amendments to the advertising law, according to which paid TV channels will not be able to sell advertising. They will come into force on January 1, 2015 and will affect over 1,400 channels.

Blavatnik and Akopov are trying to sell the company

On October 22, 2014, it became known that Access Industries Leonard Blavatnik and the founder of Amedia Alexander Akopov are discussing its sale with a number of investors, top managers of two media holdings told Vedomosti. Akopov and Vice President of Access Industries in Russia Anatoly Akimenko confirmed this. Negotiations have been going on since the spring of 2014 with several potential buyers, including foreign ones, but have not yet reached the final stage, Akimenko said. With whom exactly negotiations are underway, neither he nor Akopov specify. Anonymous sources of Vedomosti say that the owners of Amedia discussed a deal with CTC Media and Gazprom Media. A source at CTC Media confirmed the negotiations, but did not disclose details. A source at Gazprom Media said there were only preliminary discussions with the holding.

The owners of Amedia are ready to both sell part of its shares and leave the group completely, options for merging this business with another are also possible, Vedomosti interlocutors know. First of all, we are talking about the sale of a studio and a production company. Akopov and Akimenko categorically refused to talk about the cost of the group. Vedomosti sources in the companies with which the possibility of buying Amedia was discussed say that the owners estimate the group's assets at least $100 million.

As of October 2014, Access Industries has a 66% stake in the group, Blavatnik's investment in Amedia amounted to $45 million. The vast majority of this money went to buy out and reconstruct the premises for the studio, which now Amedia leases to other producers of series, films and shows.

2015 may be a difficult year for manufacturers of television content. Advertising revenues of the channels stagnate and TV holdings are discussing a significant reduction in costs for 2015. However, television producers interviewed by Vedomosti say that they do not yet see negative changes in relations with the channels. Akopov and Akimenko also draw attention to the fact that Amedia's business has been actively growing over the past three years. Access Industries plans to leave Amedia only because it is already a mature company and a long-standing investment, Akimenko explains:

"We are ready to sell it only if we get a good price"^[2]

And Akopov indicates that he will continue to engage in this business, even if he ceases to be the owner of the company.

Over the past years, Russian media holdings have been trying to establish control over content producers: Gazprom Media bought for 13.6 billion rubles in 2011. 75% of Comedy Club Production, and later acquired Good Story Media. Yuri Kovalchuk's National Media Group gained control of Fyodor Bondarchuk and Dmitry Rudovsky's Art Pictures Studio. And Arkady Rotenberg bought a controlling stake in Red Square, the main content producer for Channel One, in the spring. Inside CTC Media, according to Vedomosti sources close to this company, the possibility of buying shares in several production companies has also been discussed for more than a year.

2013: Moving from long series to expensive short series

In 2013, according to KVG Research, 20 premiere hours of the Amedia series were aired. It's not much, but the group now specialises in producing expensive series with a short season (20-40 episodes per season). Akopov explains the decrease in production and income by a change in the structure of ordering content: the demand for long series of 250 episodes per season has become much less than it was before the crisis, channels order primarily short series. In addition, there are significantly more production companies and competition has intensified. Ruben Dishdishyan, founder of the production company Mars Media, agrees with this description of the market situation.

2012

As of June 2012, Amedia's clients were Russian (FIRST, RUSSIA, STS, TNT, REN, TV3) and Ukrainian TV channels (1 + 1, Inter, New Channel). Production partners are the world's leading studios : Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, CBS Paramount, NBC Universal, Disney, Fox, TeLeFe, RCN, Televisa.

2008-2009: Staff cuts, credit problems

Blavatnik's support helped Amedia survive the 2008-2009 crisis. Having stuffed her hand on the series, she made big plans to enter the market for shows, films and cartoons and invested a lot in new projects, but during the crisis, orders from the channels became much smaller, purchase prices for the series decreased, and Amedia took up massive cuts, she had to fight off creditor banks. If before the crisis in 2008, Amedia's revenue was $80 million, then in 2013 - only about $60 million.

2005: Blavatnik buys 50% of the company from Akopov

CTC Media was actively negotiating the purchase of a stake in Amedia in 2005-2006, but the parties did not agree on the terms of the deal^[2]

In 2005, Leonard Blavatnik (Access Industries) became its co-owner, having bought 50% from Akopov, and two years later increased the package.

2002: Akopov establishes "Amedia"

In 2002, the Amedia group was founded by Alexander Akopov, one of the most experienced and famous Russian television producers. It began as a production company that made a name for itself on the TV series "Poor Nastya" and "Don't Be Born Beautiful," which was shown by the CTC channel (part of CTC Media). After that, the group had its own studio in the south-east of Moscow.

Awards

Amedia - winner of awards in many nominations of the TEFI National Television Competition, nominee of the international EMMY competition.

Шаблон:Online Video

Notes