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 new TV channels in English (RT), Spanish (RT Español) and Arabic (RT Arabic) languages ​ ​ around the world from a large number of satellites, as well as in cable networks.

Financing

2017: Budget allocation plan for 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 channel, VGTRK and support regional broadcasting, RIA Novosti writes.

So, RT will receive 1.22 million rubles in 2017 to fulfill "a number of language tasks that the channel faces," said Volin, deputy head of the Ministry of Communications and Communications of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 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 supposed to be budgeted for 2016, and are allocated as compensation.

2016: Reduction of funding to 16.06 billion rubles (-8%)

Financing of Russia Today will be reduced 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

2022: Moscow prepared a response to discrimination of RT DE channel in Germany

On January 31, 2022, it became known that Moscow had prepared a response to discrimination against the RT DE channel in Germany. This was reported by sources of RIA Novosti and Kommersant in the government.

What restrictions are considered:

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

Earlier, the head RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY Sergey Lavrov warned that retaliatory measures due to the oppression of RT DE could be introduced if they German government did not cancel the decision satellite to ban the 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 the decision of YouTube to remove the RT DE and Der Fehlende Part channels an "act of unprecedented information aggression."

The removal by video hosting of RT DE and DFP YouTube channels 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 agency said.

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

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

They also emphasized that the date of the implementation of the plan was "apparently chosen with special cynicism, given that September 28 marks 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 to the state Germany state." Russia^[2]

2017

RT website named Google one of the sources of "Russian propaganda"

In November 2017, it became known that Google is working on creating an algorithm for filtering news containing Russian propaganda. Eric Schmidt, head of Alphabet Holding, named the sites of Russia Today and Sputnik as the main sources of propaganda. More details here.

RT will begin broadcasting in French

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

The decision to launch broadcasting in French has nothing to do with the current commercial indicators and the effectiveness of the 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 channel in French appeared.

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

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

"Attacks 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 a serious intention of the attackers to achieve their goal - to make the victim's resources publicly inaccessible, "said Alexei Kiselev, head of the Kaspersky DDoS Prevention project in Russia. "Most likely, these attacks are not accidental, carefully prepared, and there is serious funding behind them."

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

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 site RT.com 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, a cyber attack occurred on equipment located in the RT data center in Moscow. The complete cessation of the DDoS attack was recorded at 02:20 Moscow time.

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

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

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

Earlier, the autonomous non-profit organization TV-News (Russia Today 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 a new agency was created, in 2014 wanted to allocate 2.67 billion rubles, and in 2015 - 2.35 billion rubles. Thus, the increase is 142% and 176%, respectively^[6]

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

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

In January 2015, Ekaterina Larina, director of the Department of State Policy in the Field of Media, said that due to the crisis, funding for RT and Russia Today more than doubled in currency terms.

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 MIA "Russia Today" in 2014 was $250 million, and in 2015 it will decrease to $99.7 million.

Simonyan told Gazeta.Ru about the planned large-scale reductions. "Large-scale reductions 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 first published information about the expenses of the autonomous non-profit organization TV-News, which manages RT (formerly Russia Today). According to the report, in 2015, 18.2 billion rubles were allocated from the budget for the maintenance of RT

Notes