About RT

With its first international news channel launched in 2005, RT is now a global, round-the-clock news network of eight TV channels, broadcasting news, current affairs, and documentaries, with digital platforms in six languages and RUPTLY video news agency. Round-the-clock news channels in English, Arabic, Spanish, and documentary channel RT Doc, in English and Russian, broadcast from Moscow, while RT America airs from Washington, RT UK from London, and RT France from Paris. Today, RT is available in more than 100 countries spanning five continents.

RT creates news with an edge for viewers who want to Question More. RT covers stories overlooked by the mainstream media, provides alternative perspectives on current affairs, and acquaints international audiences with a Russian viewpoint on major global events.

RT is the winner of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards for best 24-hour newscast, and the only Russian TV channel to be a six-time Emmy finalist. In 2018, RT was nominated for the International Emmy Award in the 'News' category for a series of special reports about the humanitarian crisis in the Iraqi city of Mosul following efforts by Iraqi government forces and their Western allies to recapture the city from ISIS. The channel first made it into the International Emmy finals in 2010 for its coverage of US President Barack Obama's first visit to Moscow; in 2012, for coverage of Occupy Wall Street protests in the US in 2011; in 2014, for a series of reports on a Guantánamo Bay inmates' hunger strike; and in 2016, for its reporting on the 70th session of the UN General Assembly. Chris Hedges, host of 'On Contact with Chris Hedges', scored for RT America its first Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host. RT holds dozens of medals from the New York Festivals for its documentary and news programming, and has been repeatedly recognized by numerous international awards competitions and media organizations, including the Cannes Lions, the Webby Awards, the Lovies, the Shorty Awards, the Association for International Broadcasting, and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, among many others.

RT works with leading international media and public sphere personalities, and currently airs or has aired programs anchored by renowned broadcasting legend Larry King, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Pulitzer-prize winner and Emmy-nominated journalist Chris Hedges, the "most dangerous financial expert" Max Keiser, former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, legendary football coach José Mourinho, top American news personality Rick Sanchez, and French media icon Frédéric Taddeï, among others.

In 2016, RT filmed the first-ever 360-degree video of Earth from space, and in 2017, in collaboration with Roscosmos State Corporation and Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, presented the world with the first-ever panoramic video filmed in open space, during a spacewalk.

In 2018, RT founded the Khaled Alkhateb International Memorial Awards to honor the sacrifice of RT Arabic war correspondent Khaled Alkhateb. Khaled died while working in Syria in 2017. The awards recognize the brave journalists who report from conflict zones around the world.

RT AUDIENCE

According to a 2017 survey on TV news consumption by Ipsos, a leading audience research firm, RT has a total weekly audience of 100 million viewers in 47 of the 100+ countries where RT broadcasts are available. RT enjoys its largest regional audience in Europe, with 43 million weekly viewers in 15 European countries. In the US, RT has a weekly audience of 11 million. Across the Middle East and North Africa, where news consumers were polled in 15 countries, RT has a weekly TV audience of 11 million. In Latin America, RT's weekly viewership is 18 million.

In South America, RT is part of the national TV network of Argentina and Venezuela. It was picked up by a state-operated satellite system in Bolívia and the FESCOM Association in Colómbia, which includes 200 cable operators. RT's programming also airs on Cuba's national TV channel.

Online, RT is the top non-Anglo-Saxon TV news network in terms of traffic: in December 2018, RT websites, collectively, had more than 190 million visits, according to SimilarWeb.

RT Arabic leads among all other Arabic-language television news channels websites in terms of page views and unique visitors, surpassing the likes of Al Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and CNN Arabic. The online audience of RT Spanish is likewise ahead of all other Spanish-language websites of international news channels, including BBC, CNN, Euronews, France 24, and the Latin American channel TeleSur.

RT is the #1 TV news network on YouTube with more than eight billion views across its channels and over 12 million subscribers. In October 2018, RT Arabic became the first broadcaster of non-Arabic origin in the region to generate over one billion views on YouTube, leaving behind the Arabic versions of CNN, BBC, and DW, among others. RT Spanish has more than 1 billion views on YouTube — more than all other Spanish-language versions of international TV news outlets.

RT is an autonomous, non-profit organization that is publicly financed from the budget of the Russian Federation. For more information, press@rttv.ru.