RT TV Russia Today

The channel was created by the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization "TV-Novosti," the founder was the largest Russian news agency "RIA-Novosti." Russia Today broadcasts 24-hour news channels in English (RT), Spanish (RT Español) and Arabic (RT Arabic) around the world from a large number of satellites, as well as on cable networks.

Financing

2017: Plan of allocation from the budget of an additional 1.2 billion rubles

The State Duma Committee on Information Policy approved in November 2016 the allocation of additional funds from the budget to finance the Russia Today TV channel, VGTRK and support for regional broadcasting, RIA Novosti writes.

Thus, rubles RT will receive 1.22 mrd in 2017 to fulfill "a number of language tasks that the channel faces," the deputy head said Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Alexey Volin at a committee meeting.

In 2017, it is planned to allocate 750 million rubles "for the transition to a regional tie-in in the process of digital broadcasting of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company." According to Volin, this is necessary so that residents of the regions can get access to VGTRK programs in digital quality.

In addition, 780 million rubles are planned to be allocated to support regional broadcasting in settlements of less than 100 thousand inhabitants. These funds were to be included in the budget for 2016, and are allocated as compensation.

2016: Funding cut to RUB 16.06 bn (-8%)

Russia Today financing will decrease by 8% - from 17.5 billion rubles in 2016 to 16.06 billion in 2019. In 2017, the channel will receive 17.5 billion rubles of subsidies, in 2018 - 16.3 billion^[1].

History

TV channel launch in India

On December 5, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin, together with the editor-in-chief of the Russia Today media group and Russia Today TV channel Margarita Simonyan, announced the launch of RT broadcasting in India (Russia Today India). This was the end of the Russian-Indian negotiations. Read more here.

2022: Moscow prepares response to discrimination against RT DE channel in Germany

On January 31, 2022, it became known that Moscow had prepared retaliatory measures in connection with the discrimination of the RT DE channel in Germany. This was reported by sources of RIA Novosti and Kommersant in the government.

What restrictions are considered:

• restricting advertizing German companies to; the Russian MEDIA
• "severe fines" against YouTube;
• deprivation of broadcasting licenses in the Russian Federation DW Deutsch and DW-TV and sanctions for journalists.

Earlier, the head RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY Sergei Lavrov warned that retaliatory measures due to the oppression of RT DE could be introduced if it German government does not cancel the decision to ban satellite broadcasting of the channel.

2021: Russian Foreign Ministry calls removal of RT YouTube channels "an act of unprecedented information aggression"

On September 29, 2021, it became known that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called YouTube's decision to remove RT DE and Der Fehlende Part channels "an act of unprecedented information aggression."

The removal by video hosting of the YouTube channels RT DE and DFP on September 28, 2021 was announced by the head of RT DE and Ruptly Dinara Toktosunova.

"Deleted without the right to restore the accounts of two media operators of the RT group - RT DE and Der Fehlende Part. Attempts by the Internet giant to link such egregious actions with some abstract "violations of the internal rules of the community" as a justification for this obvious manifestation of censorship and suppression of freedom of expression cannot and will not be considered, "the ministry said in a statement.

The Foreign Ministry added that video hosting went to these actions "with the vowel and tacit support of the German authorities and local media," which almost openly subjected correspondents of Russian broadcasters to "many years of harassment, including blocking bank accounts, slander in public space."

"The purpose of aggression against the projects of the Russian media holding is obvious - to drown out the sources of information that do not fit into the media background comfortable for German officialdom," the department said.

They also stressed that the date of the implementation of the plan, "apparently, was selected with special cynicism, given that September 28 is celebrated by the International Day of Universal Access to Information."

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, commenting on the removal of the channels, noted that this is "a real media war declared by the state Germany state." Russia^[2]

2017

RT site named by Google as one of the sources of "Russian propaganda"

In November 2017, it became known that Google is working on the creation of an algorithm for filtering news containing Russian propaganda. As the main sources of propaganda, the head of the Alphabet holding, Eric Schmidt, named the sites of the Russia Today TV channel and the Sputnik agency. Read more here.

RT will start broadcasting in French

RT plans to start broadcasting in French in December 2017. In June 2017, the annual budget of the French edition was announced - €20 million, the staff - about 100 employees, including 50 French-speaking journalists, who will ensure the operation of the Russian channel in France, Belgium, Switzerland and, possibly, Canada. This is reported by the French portal Satellites^[3].

The decision to launch broadcasting in French has nothing to do with the current commercial performance and efficiency of the TV channel, which is contained in state subsidies, but only with the "geopolitical situation," according to experts. The main task of RT France is to cover in French the Russian point of view on events in the world.

The intention to create a French version of RT became known back in 2014. Then it was planned to invest 1.4 billion rubles of budget funds in the project, but during the year only the website of the TV channel in French appeared.

The publication informs that the channel for subscribers will be in free access through the set-top boxes of operators, since the foreign audience is not ready to pay for the content of this channel, the existing RT business model is not configured for direct advertising monetization.

2016: Cyber attacks on RT sites have been going on for more than seven days

on RT last several days in a row, which is an atypical situation for a protected resource, when attackers cannot break through the defense. This fact, as well as the lack of requirements from the attackers, indicates the serious intention of the attackers to achieve their goal - to make the victim's resources publicly inaccessible, - said Alexey Kiselev, project manager at Kaspersky DDoS Prevention in Russia. "Most likely, these attacks are not accidental, carefully prepared, and there is serious funding behind them."

not every hacker can engage in such massive attacks. According to our most conservative estimates, daily traffic games have already cost an unknown customer about 200 thousand dollars, - said Elvira Chudnovskaya, head of the interactive projects service at RT. "I think there are not many hacker groups that are ready to try so hard for almost zero results."

The largest of the series of attacks occurred on the night of August 9, 2016 - a mixed-type DDoS attack (UDP-amplification and SYN-flood) on the RT.com site consisted of two stages. The first stage of the attack - on the American and European data centers - began at 00:00 Moscow time. At the second stage, there was a cyber attack on equipment located at the RT data center in Moscow. The complete cessation of the DDoS attack was recorded at 02:20 Moscow time.

Previously, the site was RT.com repeatedly subjected to cyber attacks. In July 2016, the site was subjected to a large-scale attack that coincided with the attempted coup in Turkey. In September 2014, the most powerful DDoS attack on the RT website took place during its entire existence, which was repelled at the expense of technical specialists.

2015: Plan to increase funding to 15.38 billion rubles (+ 41 %)

The Russia Today TV channel in 2015 was supposed to receive 15.38 billion rubles from the federal budget, which is 41% more than planned a year ago, the RBC daily newspaper reported in September 2014, citing the draft federal budget for 2015 approved by the government^[4] planning period 2016-2017 Russia^[5].

Previously, the autonomous non-profit organization TV-News (Russia Today TV channel) was planned to allocate 10.95 billion rubles in 2015. For this year, 11.87 billion rubles were budgeted for Russia Today.

Support for the international news agency Russia Today will increase even more (it, like Russia Today, is headed by Margarita Simonyan). The draft budget for 2015 includes 6.48 billion rubles, while RIA Novosti, on the basis of which the new agency was created, wanted to allocate 2.67 billion rubles in 2014, and 2.35 billion rubles in 2015. Thus, the increase is 142% and 176%, respectively^[6]

In January 2015, the Vedomosti newspaper reported that subsidies to state media, including television companies, were reduced by 10% in 2015 due to the sequestration of the federal budget. In total, 94.6 billion rubles were planned to be allocated from the budget to support the media in 2015, which is 7.8% less than a year earlier. However, after the latest cuts, state media will be able to get 17.3% less from the budget than in 2014.

The biggest problem with the budget arose in the state media, engaged in promoting the interests of Russia abroad. Many of their expenses included in the budgets are calculated in foreign currency, and due to the devaluation of the ruble, their actual budget fell sharply. In particular, about 80% of RT's expenses are currency, said Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the channel. "The fall in the ruble exchange rate means that our budget in fact has already been almost halved," she said.

Due to the current situation, RT does not exclude that it will abandon plans to create French and German versions of the channel. Simonyan also fears that the company will have to leave television networks in a number of countries, which will lead to a fall in the RT audience.

In January 2015, Ekaterina Larina, director of the department of state policy in the field of media at the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, said that due to the crisis, funding for RT and Russia Today in foreign exchange terms has more than halved.

According to her, in 2014, the RT budget amounted to about $445 million at a rate of 30.5 rubles. per dollar, and in 2015 - only $236 million at a rate of 65 rubles. per unit of American currency. The budget of the Rossiya Segodnya MIA in 2014 was $250 million, and in 2015 it will decrease to $99.7 million.

Simonyan told Gazeta.Ru about the planned large-scale cuts. "Large-scale cuts are planned in RT and Russia Today. In addition, the development plans for this year have been radically revised and all new projects have been canceled, "she complained.

December 2015, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the first time published information on the expenses of the autonomous non-profit organization TV News, which operates the RT channel (formerly Russia Today). According to the report, in 2015, 18.2 billion rubles were allocated from the budget for the maintenance of RT

Notes