MOSCOW, OCTOBER 4, 2010 - RT, the Russian English-language news channel, begins 24-hour broadcasting in Chicago via Comcast, a major US cable operator.
RT will be available to more than 1.7 million subscribers of the Comcast Chicago cable network as part of the Expanded Basic package (Channel No. 103) in America’s second biggest financial centre and third most populated city. RT English is already available in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles and San Diego. Also, RT is available throughout the United States via the GlobCastWorldTV satellite operator. “Of course, we are happy that we managed to expand significantly the broadcast range of our channel in the US recently and reach such major cities as Los Angeles and Chicago,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said. “But merely expanding the broadcast is not enough to attract viewers. That’s why we focus on making RT programmes interesting specifically to our US audience and covering the subjects that appeal to American viewers.” According to a market study conducted by Nielsen Media Research in 2009, Washington DMA TV audience prefers RT news in prime time to similar channels from other countries—the Arab channel Al Jazeera English, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, France 24, Euronews and China’s CCTV-9. For example, Nielsen reported that RT’s daily audience is 6.5 times bigger than that of Al Jazeera English, while RT’s monthly audience is 5 times bigger than that of Deutsche Welle. RT, the first English-language news channel in Russia, was launched in 2005. It broadcasts 24/7 from Moscow and a studio in Washington, D.C. In 2007, the Arabic version of RT, Rusiya al-Yaum, went on air, and towards the end of 2009 a Spanish-language channel was launched. The open signal is available to millions of viewers in Europe, North and South America. Also, RT programmes can be watched live at rt.com.