MTV Russia To Go Off Air in 2013
Published: December 12, 2012 (Issue # 1739)
MOSCOW — MTV Russia will stop airing in mid-2013 due to falling ratings, the holding company that controls the music channel has confirmed.
“It’s true, as of June 1, 2013, MTV will be replaced by a new entertainment channel for young people called ‘Pyatnitsa’ [Friday],” ProfMedia president Nikolai Kartozia told Kommersant in an interview published Tuesday.
Unidentified sources had predicted the station’s closure in a Dec. 6 report in the Vedomosti business daily.
Kartozia explained the decision to close the station by saying that MTV Russia had ceased to be “the music channel that we all once loved.”
MTV Russia’s ratings have dropped off because of the growing popularity of listening to music online, he said, adding that the channel “is no longer effective.”