Match TV presented in Russia

Today Moscow hosted the official presentation of the new federal sports channel Match TV. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom-Media Holding, Dmitry Chernyshenko, openex the event and spoke about the current tasks of the channel.

"The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi united the whole country, but we still have much to strive for. We would like to have more fans than in competitor countries, meanwhile, the consumption of sports content in Russia is half that of Brazil, it was necessary to fix it. Now we are completing the formation of a pay channel system, which was formed after the merger of NTV-Plus and VGTRK. More than 700 cable and satellite operators will broadcast this package," Chernyshenko said.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom-Media Holding said that full-scale sports broadcasts will reach more than 1747 hours of sports broadcasting a week. "1200 employees and 12 satellite stations will be working on this task. There will be 5 regional versions of the channel. Our goal is to become one of the major players in the sphere of sports," Vestnik Kavkaza cited him as saying.

The General Producer of Match TV, Tina Kandelaki, in her turn, admitted that she is happy with the opening of Match TV and invited the commentator George Cherdantsev on stage. "You can find the best commentators in the country here. I am sure that all our commentators will help to capture moments that will rewrite the history of sport," he said.

The Olympic champion in figure skating, Tatiana Navka, who will be the host of one of the programs, stressed that it's unfair when Russian athletes are forgotten immediately after victories and showered with stones in the case of defeats.