In October 2011, the Kommersant TV television news channel was launched. Its feature was broadcasting without presenters - all information is presented through photographs, illustrations and changing text.
At the beginning of June 2012, a staff reshuffle took place at the Kommersant media holding. Demyan Kudryavtsev, who has been a member of the holding's management for more than 10 years, left the post of general director. His place was taken by the general director of the UTV television holding Dmitry Sergeev. At the same time, the board of directors was headed by Ivan Tavrin, general director of the Megafon company controlled by Alisher Usmanov.
Already at the end of June, the new management announced the suspension of the Kommersant TV project. According to Dmitry Sergeev, the channel in the form in which it broadcast is economically ineffective and will never be able to reach self-sufficiency. Significant expenses for maintaining broadcasting and broadcasting of a TV signal via cable networks forced the new management, which is faced with the task of optimizing the business in the holding, to suspend broadcasting.
The Kommersant TV channel and the Kommersant FM radio station are the brainchilds of former CEO Demyan Kudryavtsev, who did not reach the planned operating profit, and the publishing house brings the lion's share of the media holding's revenues - 80% - today.
However, Dmitry Sergeev did not say that the channel was closed forever, but hinted that a new model of its development would be worked out, maybe there would be a return to traditional presenters, etc.
But, most likely, the most probable form of the channel's existence, at least at the initial stage, will be Internet broadcasting. According to Dmitry Sergeev, the holding's management is currently working on a new information and economic concept, and within its framework a decision will be made to resume broadcasting on the Internet.
Kommersant TV is not the first media holding project to undergo optimization. The Russian-language version of Citizen K magazine was closed even earlier. In the same way, the management of the structure explained this step with commercial reasons.
