PRESS: Web resources in Russia overtaking TV channels by audience

MOSCOW, Sep 13 (PRIME) -- Several Internet projects of the Runet, the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, have beaten the country’s biggest TV channels by audience coverage, business daily Vedomosti reported Tuesday, referring to a TNS study for June.

Google led by monthly audience coverage with 88.0% and was followed by its local rival Yandex with 87.2% and social network VKontakte with 86.0%. YouTube had 82.7% and Internet portal Mail.Ru – 81.8%.

TNS polled people at the age of 12–44 years in Russian big cities with the population of more than 700,000 people. The researcher weighed both mobile audience, who surf the Web via mobile devices, and traditional audience, who use desktops and laptops.

Television channel Channel One, which is a leader by popularity among TV viewers, was only on the sixth rank by monthly audience.

By daily audience, VKontakte covered 58.7% and was followed by Yandex with 50.0%; Google with 45.7%; Mail.Ru with 36.0%; and YouTube with 30.9%. Channel One was again here on the sixth rank with 23.8%.

Yandex’s spokeswoman Asya Melkumova said big Internet resources are becoming more popular than TV channels, but the trend is not a new one; it would be more accurately to scan users’ activities in all cities and towns and take a wider age range.

The Internet’s audience is expanding thanks to people at the age of 40–50 years, that is the active audience of TV channels, Melkumova said.

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