By Vestnik Kavkaza
Yesterday the Multimedia Sputnik Group began operating. It includes centers in many countries and is orientated toward a foreign audience. It is planned that in 2015 it will broadcast in 30 languages in 34 countries. Dmitry Kiselev, the General Director of the Russia Today Information Agency, spoke about the concept of the new international information brand.
According to Dmitry Kiselev, Sputnik is not aimed at substituting for RIA Novosti in Russia, but in the rest of the world the Russia Today Information Agency will be marketed under a new brand: “RIA Novosti and the website ria.ru will remain the most important information resources, the flagships of the information market in our country. But abroad our agency will be marketed under the name of Sputnik, a word which is so recognizable, so warm and so romantic."
First of all, Sputnik is radio. “Already today in many capitals of the world, for example in London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, in Kabul and Delhi, you can listen to Radio Sputnik in FM or in digital format. This used to be called "international broadcasting". On the Internet we also have several brands, but the main one is sputniknews.com, our flagship global resource where people will hear news, our interpretations, our comments, will find pictures and videos. We will also have mobile applications for smartphones. We will be active and are already active on social networks. Our capabilities can be measured at least according to what is happening in Russia. ria.ru - our flagship site in Russia - is ranked first according to subscriptions on social networks. It shows that we know how to work in a competitive field, and we will increase our opportunities in the world. We already have three newsfeeds - in English, Arabic and Spanish. On December 1 we will start another one in Chinese,” Kiselev stated.
He also spoke about the principles of selection of information and the idea of the world to be presented by Sputnik: “It is a multi-polar, multi-colored and multi-cultural world. In this world, Japan is Japanese, China is Chinese, Turkey is Turkish, Russia is Russian, with multinationality, with all the civilizations that our people created on our territory and around it. This is our idea. We are opposed to the aggressive propaganda which is now fed to the world and which imposes a unipolar picture of the world. We believe that it is unrealistic, we believe that it brings humanity only suffering and blood, and nothing good will happen on this path. In this sense we have lots of allies, because many countries and people realize that a multi-colored picture of the world is certainly closer to them when they are not crossed out, when they are not denied their own culture, their own way of life, their own phase of economic and cultural development.”
