Following the results of last year, “Channel One” received a net profit of 6.3 billion rubles, which was profitable for the first time in seven years – from 2013. It is reported by Interfax with reference to the company reporting data. In 2013, the “First Channel” earned 2.7 billion rubles.
At the same time, the agency noted, the company’s revenue fell compared to 2019 by 6.7 percent – up to 25.2 billion rubles. At the end of 2019, it was 26.99 billion rubles. Net profit has developed mainly due to the article “Other revenues” – 11.9 billion rubles in 2020 against 6.9 billion rubles – in 2019.
In December 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the privatization of the channel and reduce the share of the state in the Channel Channel JSC from 51 to 34 percent. Decree “First Channel” was excluded from the list of strategic enterprises and joint-stock companies. The aim of the change was called enhancing the sustainability of the TV channel experiencing financial difficulties.
The complexity “First Channel” is experiencing since 2014 and has already requested the state about regular subsidies for the production of content. The required size of the support to stabilize its financial condition channel was estimated at 6.5 billion rubles annually in 2018-2021 and five billion rubles in 2022-2025.