Russia’s Rostelecom portal Sputnik launches online cinema service

MOSCOW, Dec 9 (PRIME) -- Russian online portal Sputnik, run by state-controlled telecom giant Rostelecom, has launched a cinema service, called Kino, and users can choose any movie out of 10,000 offered by the resource’s partners with two thirds being free, Rostelecom said in a statement Wednesday.

“Demand in such a service as Kino has matured long ago and is evident for market participants.

Many subscribers of Rostelecom have already appreciated advantages of legal services of online video, but piracy still impedes work of players acting legally,” Andrei Golovanov, director for content policy at Rostelecom, said.

“Legal online cinemas make a lot of efforts so that the user could find a quick and easy way to their content and we are glad that such a way has been found at last.”

The project’s first partners are online cinemas Zabava.ru, ivi.ru, Megogo, Tvigle and Tvzavr. The service is available on kino.sputnik.ru on Sputnik, whose audience more than quadrupled over a year to 3 million users in November.

A mobile version allowing users to watch movies on smartphones and tablets will be released shortly.

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