TNT (Russian TV channel)
TNT is a Russian federal TV channel founded in 1997, and is considered one of the five most-popular TV channels in Russia. At the beginning of 2012, it reached more than 104 million people.
Although its target audience is viewers 14 to 44 years old, its core demographic is ages 18 to 30. The channel focuses on entertainment, particularly comedy series. Since 2001 it has been a member of the Gazprom-Media, the flagship TV channel of Gazprom-Media Entertainment TV.
TNT's main source of income is advertisements. It has regional TV stations and regional partners, who receive advertising time on the channel. The channel delivers its signal via satellites in four orbits, which allow its 27 television stations to receive it in their corresponding time zones. The signal is received and redistributed by local stations broadcasting in most large cities and 5,900 smaller communities in the Russian Federation.
TNT reserves the rights to all original shows and owns two of Russia's largest production companies: Comedy Club Production and Good Story Media. It also has exclusive contracts with a number of Russian showrunners. Since 2016, TNT has been directed by Artur Janibekyan. In February 2022, Tina Kandelaki was named channel`s interim CEO as a substitute for Roman Petrenko, the new adviser to Gazprom-Media CEO.
History
Founding
TNT was founded in September 1997 as part of the Media-Most holding company. Its general director was Sergei Skvortsov, appointed by Media-Most first deputy chairman Igor Malashenko. The new channel initially focused on regional viewers.Designed to provide family entertainment, its goal was to attract the widest possible audience. TNT broadcast feature films, documentaries, series, talk and game shows, videos of Russian and foreign musicians, musical programs, comedy, news, children's entertainment and educational programs, and cartoons. Within its first five years, sports programs were also frequently shown. The NTV Plus satellite service participated in the channel's founding.
TNT was intended to compete with STS and NTV, presenting little-known videos from European and American companies. Streets of Broken Lights was a long-running series about the everyday life of the Russian police.
The channel is delivered via Intelsat 604 for European Russia in digital format and Intelsat 704 for eastern Russia; the latter used an analog format for its first six months. On January 1, 1998, TNT began broadcasting. In Moscow, it operated on UHF channel 35, which had been used in 1996-1997 by the VGTRK-owned Meteor-Sport, Russia's first sports channel, whose frequency was acquired by Media-Most in the summer of 1997 to broadcast an experimental service without a definitive format.
1998–1999
Streets of Broken Lights gave TNT a stable but comparatively small audience during its first year of broadcasting. By mid-1998, the channel could be seen in 100 Russian cities. Inspired by Broken Lights success, channel executives ordered another series: National Security Agent, about the adventures of an FSB agent. It premiered on January 1, 1999, but failed to duplicate the first series' success. In March 1999, Sergei Skvortsov left NTV-Holding and Pavel Korchagin became TNT's general director.The channel had a production system for its own series and a talk show with Vladimir Solovyov, and presented television premieres of blockbuster films. It was apolitical, there was no clear concept, its target audience was not defined, and its management assigned no special tasks; therefore, its development was unlikely. In 1999, TNT received two TEFI awards for the first season of Broken Lights and finished eighth in the rating with 3.2 percent of the audience. The audience for STS, its main competitor, was twice as large.
2000–2001
In June 2000, TNT began a news program in the Moscow region. Today in the Capital was produced by NTV and, according to Skvortsov, was intended for broadcast throughout Russia: "Our city's news will be interesting in any city". Its staff consisted of young NTV correspondents and students and recent graduates of the MSU Faculty of Journalism.On August 27, 2000, after a fire at the Ostankino Tower, TNT was one of the few channels which remained on the air and temporarily allocated part of its airtime to NTV channel for its news program Today. At this time, TNT ranked fourth among Moscow TV channels.
In 2000–2001, the channel and Media-Most holdings was on the brink of liquidation. During the spring of 2001, while NTV ownership was changing, TNT broadcast NTV programs. After the seizure and redistribution of NTV, most of its journalists moved to TNT until Boris Berezovsky proposed Yevgeny Kiselyov to head TV-6. After some of its journalists moved to TV-6, TNT changed directors; Pavel Korchagin went to TV-6, and Andrey Skutin became general director. In November 2001, TNT became part of Gazprom-Media.
2002–2005
TNT targeted a wide range of viewers before the 2002–03 season, broadcasting documentaries, cartoons, and series. There was a proposal to make TNT a sports channel. During the fall of 2002 a sports program, created with NTV Plus Sport, was added to TNT's schedule.The channel, unable to purchase blockbusters, focused on new and less-expensive programming. This approach was successful, and TNT's audience increased from 2.7 to 5.4 percent by the end of 2002. The ratings increase was primarily due to the addition of Okna, a tabloid talk show hosted by Dmitry Nagiyev, and several other programs launched by a new team of managers led by former STS CEO Roman Petrenko. TNT aired Today’s Day, its last old-regime show for the last time on November 15, 2002.
At the end of 2002 the channel adopted a new slogan, describing itself as "a unique TV channel that not only entertains, but helps you". On February 1, 2003, TNT overhauled its schedule. One of the first programs produced with the new concept was Moscow: Instructions for Proper Use, which replaced Today’s Day. TNT prioritized reality shows and a variety of alternative-entertainment programs. The closed joint-stock company TNT-Teleset became an open one. With the direct participation of Roman Petrenko and Dmitry Troitsky, a number of low-rated programs were replaced with original productions: The Forbidden Zone, The Famine, Reparation School, The Taxi, The Child Robot, Big Brother, Dom, and Dom-2. The latter jump-started the careers of hosts Ksenia Sobchak, Kseniya Borodina and Olga Buzova:
On September 1, 2003, the animated block Nickelodeon on TNT began airing during the day. That month TNT premiered Sasha + Masha, a comedy series which became one of the channel's highest-rated shows. Five seasons were produced until September 2005, when it was rerun. TNT's Comedy Club, featuring stand-up comedy, was inspired by members KVN New Armenians team:
Comedy Club showcases TNT's stable of resident TV comedians, popularizing a "new kind of humor".
2006–2007
The 2006–07 season began not in September but in July, hoping to attract an over-30 audience watching TV at their summer cottages. To expand its reality-show reputation, TNT executives introduced a number of new programs: The Candidate, Nanny To the Rescue, Former Wives Club, Wife Exchange, and A Different Life. According to former director-general Roman Petrenko, TNT "had studied almost the entire experience of the TV companies of all around the world and picked up the ideas seeming to have a greater potential, as well as hiring British producers":Channel executives began publicly expressing dissatisfaction with Dom-2, and wanted to put it on hiatus for a season or two. None of the new programs was able to match its popularity, however, and Dom-2 remains on the air as Russia's longest-lasting reality TV show.
Happy Together, an adaptation of the American sitcom Married... with Children, premiered in March 2006. Running for seven years, it was one of TNT's most successful sitcoms.
Nasha Russia, a sketch comedy series based on Little Britain and starring Mikhail Galustyan and Sergei Svetlakov, premiered on November 4, 2006. It was popular, and some of its characters became national symbols. After running for five seasons, in 2016 it was followed by a spin-off: The Bearded Guy. Understand and Forgive, developing one of Nasha Russia storylines and starring Mikhail Galustyan as unlucky Ryazan guard Sashka Borodach. Galustyan's character became symbolic of a negligent worker.
Also in November 2006, TNT's on-air style was updated. The channel began promoting the people directly connected with it: hosts, actors in series, participants in Dom-2 and Comedy Club comedians. Clips and advertisements with the slogans "TNT about life. TNT about love. TNT for fun" were shown in a month-long campaign throughout Russia.
The fall advertising campaign was followed by a larger one in spring 2007, featuring the slogan "Feel our love". According to its creator, Alexander Dulerain, "In the entire new advertising history, we wanted to overturn all the concepts familiar to the viewer, to shock him." In a series of short commercials promoting TNT stars the multiple meanings of some phrases were played with, balancing between romance and humor.
Competitions between comedians and stand-up teams, a new TV format, began in 2007. Laughter Without Rules, from the producers of Comedy Club, premiered in April. Young comedians competed for large cash prizes, with the winner moving on to A Crazy League. Laughter Without Rules lasted until the December 2009 death of host Vladimir Turchinsky. In August 2010, the show was revived as Comedy Battle and dedicated to Turchinsky. It continued until the end of 2016, and was replaced the following year by Open Mic.
In 2007, TNT received the Best TV Channel of the Year award at the Russian Entertainment Awards.