Business programme

The Battle for Digital Attention. What will People in Russia Watch Tomorrow?

15 Jun , 15:00–16:15
Building Technological Sovereignty
Pavilion G, conference hall G1

Since March 2022, a number of major foreign rights holders have announced that they will no longer be releasing new films in Russia and will refuse to prolong agreements with Russian licensees that were in force at that time, justifying these decisions on political grounds. And the US service Netflix has completely restricted access in Russia to its website and applications. It was expected that the departure of the largest and most politicized foreign major studios would expose the high degree of dependence of various segments of the domestic market on content from Western producers, demonstrate the lack of competitiveness of Russian entertainment products and, on the whole, set the Russian market segment back. However, the Russian media industry has proven to be quite adaptable to the quickly changing conditions – content producers are building a loyal viewership, and Western premieres in Russian online cinemas are being replaced by South Korean, Indian, and Turkish content. How has the attention market changed in Russia? How will domestic platforms develop and grow? What do Russian and friendly content producers think of the new market conditions? What support does the industry need? Do we need initiatives to promote radical change to copyright laws so that Russian companies can use copyrighted works in spite of the ban imposed by major studios?

Moderator
Svetlana Balanova, Chief Executive Officer, National Media Group

Panellists
Timur Vaynshteyn, General Producer, NTV Broadcasting Company
Gavriil Gordeev, Original Content Producer, Okko
Alexey Goreslavsky, Director General, ANO "Internet Development Institute" (IRI)
Marina Krasnova, General Director, VKontakte
Alexander Nechaev, Deputy General Director, Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR)

Broadcast