About RT

With its first international news channel launched in December 2005, today RT is a global, round-the-clock news network that includes seven TV channels broadcasting news, current affairs and documentary content, digital platforms in six languages and a video news agency RUPTLY. Round-the-clock news channels in English, Arabic and Spanish and documentary channel RTDoc in English and Russian broadcast from Moscow, while RT America airs from a Washington, DC studio and RT UK – from London. Today, RT is available in more than 100 countries spanning 5 continents.

RT creates news with an edge for viewers who want to Question More. RT covers stories overlooked by the mainstream media, provides alternative perspectives on current affairs, and acquaints international audiences with a Russian viewpoint on major global events.

RT is the winner of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards for best 24-hr newscast and the only Russian TV channel to be a five-time Emmy finalist. The channel was first nominated for an International Emmy in 2010 for its coverage of U.S. President Barack Obama’s first visit to Moscow; in 2012 for covering Occupy Wall Street protests in the United States in 2011; in 2014 for a series of reports on a Guantanamo Bay inmates’ hunger strike; and in 2016 for its coverage of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly. Chris Hedges, host of ‘On Contact with Chris Hedges,’ scored RT America its first Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host. RT also holds multiple medals from the New York Festivals for its documentary and news programming and has taken home more than 50 international media awards in 2016 alone.

According to a November 2015 Ipsos - a leading audience research firm - survey of TV news consumption conducted in 38 countries of the more than 100 where RT broadcasts are available, 70 million people watch RT channels every week. 35 million – watch RT daily.*

RT enjoys its largest regional audience in Europe, with more than 36 million people watching RT weekly in 10 European countries, placing it among the top 5 pan-regional news channels.** RT also makes the top-5 list of the most watched international TV news channels in the US, with a weekly audience of more than 8 million viewers. 11 million people watch RT weekly in the Middle East and Africa, where news consumers were polled in 16 different countries.

In South America, RT is part of the national TV network of Argentina and Venezuela. It was picked up as a state-operated satellite system in Bolivia and the FESCOM Association in Colombia, which includes 200 cable operators. RT’s programming also airs on Cuba’s national TV channel.

Online, RT is the top non-Anglo-Saxon TV news network in terms of online PC audience, according to comScore. More than 3 million unique visitors access RT.com’s multilingual news content daily, according to Google Analytics, while comScore reports that RT receives nearly 50 million unique users monthly. The best of RT broadcasts can be found on its YouTube channel, which in 2013 became the first TV news channel in YouTube’s history to reach one BILLION views. Today, RT is the #1 TV news network on the platform with more than 4.5 billion views across its channels and 4.5 million subscribers. RT is also at the forefront of adopting new media technology and was one of the first TV news channels to start creating 360 video content in 2015.

For more information, please contact the RT press office at press@rttv.ru.

*The study was conducted in 38 countries through telephone or online interviews with representative samples of the total population (15 years plus) from August-November of 2015 by Ipsos, a leading global audience research company. The study was carried out in Russia, Poland, Greece, Ireland, UK, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, USA, Canada, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, India, New Zealand, Australia, Libya, Palestine, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Lebanon, Tunisia, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria.
** In these regions RT was measured alongside CNN, BBC World News, euronews, Sky News, France 24, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle TV, China’s CCTV and Japan’s NHK.