Worldwide Web Poses Challenge To Russia’s TV Viewership
Published: May 30, 2012 (Issue # 1710)
For the first time ever, the number of Internet users took the lead over television in Russia in April.
Yandex website became the new leader on the Russian media market, outstripping the country’s leading Channel 1 TV station, Vedomosti newspaper reported.
In April, Yandex had 19.1 million users a day while Channel 1’s viewers totaled 18.2 million a day.
Yandex and Mail.ru have almost caught up with Channel 1 on a weekly scale as well. The biggest lead Channel 1 got over websites was in its monthly number of viewers. At least once a month 41.4 million people watch Channel 1, which is 8.2 million people more than use Mail.ru and 8.7 million more than use Yandex.
Overall the gap between the number of those who watch TV and those who use the Internet in Russia is getting smaller. In April, 30.5 million Russians used the Internet daily while a million less of them watched TV.
The major advantage TV still holds over the Internet is the amount of time people spend using it. For instance, the average viewer watches TV for more than an hour a day, while on average users visit Yandex for only 10 minutes a day.
In 2011 Yandex made 20 billion rubles ($628 million), NTV — 20.7 billion rubles ($650 million) and Channel 1 — 28.8 billion rubles ($904 million).