Yellow, Black and White

History

2024: Change of Ownership

On July 8, 2024, it became known that one of the largest producers of television and cinematic content in Russia, Yellow, Black and White (YBW), announced changes in its owners. Alexey Trotsyuk, one of the founders of the company, sold his share to three other co-founders - Eduard Iloyan, Vitaly Shlyappo and Denis Zhalinsky.

According to Vedomosti, the process of buying out Trotsyuk's stake ended in early July 2024. A YBW spokesman confirmed the transaction, but the exact amount and distribution of shares between the remaining owners were not disclosed.

Yellow, Black and White was founded in 2007 by four former KVN members and quickly established itself as a producer of popular television projects. The company is known for series such as "Kitchen" and "Hotel Eleon," which aired on STS.

In recent years, YBW has focused on the production of full-length films, including the leaders of the Russian film distribution. The film "Cheburashka" collected 6.7 billion rubles at the box office, "Challenge" - 2.1 billion rubles, and the dilogy "Kholop" brought almost 6.9 billion rubles at the box office. The company also has the status of a leading film company and receives government subsidies from the Film Foundation as a priority.

In addition to filmmaking, the founders of YBW launched the Start video service in 2017, which became a key asset of the eponymous group of companies. At the end of 2023, Start ranked fifth in the online cinema market in Russia with a 7% share with a total market volume of 94.2 billion rubles.

Despite leaving YBW's shareholders, Alexey Trotsyuk will retain his position as general producer and stake in Start. He owns 11.87% of Digital Media Holding LLC, which is the parent company of Start.^[1]

2014: "Krasny Kvadrat" out of co-owners Molodejj.tv

The company "Krasny Kvadrat," which is the main supplier of content for Channel One, came out in November 2014 from the founders of LLC "Molodezh.TV," which manages the Internet resource Molodejj.tv, as it shared its views on the development of the portal with another founder, the Yellow group, Black and White (YBW) - the main content producer for the holding "STS Media." The newspaper Kommersant writesabout this.

Krasny Kvadrat bought 50% of the Molodejj.tv from YBW in 2011, the amount of the transaction was not officially disclosed^[2].

According to YBW Marketing Director Alexander Ilyin, the deal was cash-strapped and was primarily related to the restructuring of the project. "In addition, we disagreed on the development of the portal," he said.

Initially, only the content of the YBW series "Kitchen," "Traffic Light," "The Last of the Magikians" was located on the video resource. It was planned that the portal will be replenished with "Krasny Kvadrat" programs that are also interesting to its target audience - for example, the show "Voice" or "Fashion Sentence."

Alexander Ilyin said that in the near future Molodejj.tv is waiting for a restart. In particular, YBW intends to expand the possibilities for monetizing the content of the resource, adding a paid one to the advertising model of its distribution.

"We are actively negotiating with large copyright holders, including majors, for the purchase of new top-end content, thereby the portal will cease to depend only on YBW projects," Ilyin said.

As Tatyana Matveeva clarified, the media director of Gazprom Media Digital, which sells video advertising on the resource, Molodejj.tv has already changed the content distribution model, abandoning the partner model and concentrating on attracting direct traffic to the site.

Notes