OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2010. CTC Media, Inc. (“CTC Media” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: CTCM), Russia’s leading independent media company, announced the launch of the CTC-International channel in Israel. The channel is distributed on the Yes satellite platform and the HOT cable network, which have a combined total of approximately 120 thousand Russian-speaking subscribers. CTC Media has signed 2-year non-exclusive distribution agreements with the broadcasters, reported the press-centre of CTC Media.

The international version of CTC, which was launched in the US in December 2009, is a 24-hour a day family entertainment channel with a broad range of high quality programming content from the CTC (80%), Domashny and DTV channels.
 
1 million people, or 13% of the Israeli population, is Russian-speaking and overall pay-TV market revenues are estimated at USD 230 million for the full year 2009.

Anton Kudryashov, Chief Executive Officer of CTC Media, commented: “The launch of CTC-International in Israel is in line with our international expansion strategy and follows the introduction of the channel in the US at the end of last year. Israel is an attractive TV market, with 224 minutes of average daily household viewing in 2009, which is higher than in most European countries. Furthermore, there are over 1.5 million pay-TV subscribers in Israel, with pay-TV penetration of close to 80%, and cable and satellite pay-TV subscription rates are also relatively high.”

Irina Shalinets, Director of the International Broadcasting Department at CTC Media, added: “Many CTC programs and series are already familiar to viewers in Israel because they have previously been acquired by local broadcasters. TV viewers will now be able to watch the best of our content on a dedicated 24/7 channel.”

Ron Hermelin, Head of Channels at HOT, commented: “HOT was the first company in the world to broadcast CTC content outside Russia, which we did on our Video On Demand platform. Given the popularity of the channel content among our subscribers and the demand for more Russian language programming, we are delighted to be able to add the CTC-International channel to our offering.”

“CTC’s infotainment genre is the perfect fit for our range of Russian-language TV channels, and will make our package even more attractive to viewers”, emphasized Yoina Vizental, Deputy Chief Content Officer at Yes.