RT news TV channel has begun broadcasting 24 hours a day in Spanish. On Monday, December 28 the first news bulletins went out.
The TV programme considers the difference in time in broadcasting zones and all news bulletins are run at morning or evening prime-time in New-York, Miami, Los-Angeles, Mexico, Buenos-Aires and Madrid. Every day RT reports on sports news, life in the Russian regions and conducts important interviews.
The channel has already taken exclusive interviews from Ecuadors president Rafael Correa, Mexicos Energy Minister Georgina Kessel Martinez, flamenco celebrity Mercedes Ruiz, Cubas jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca, human rights activist Eva Golinger and other well-known people.
The channel broadcasts from Moscow via satellites IS9, Hispasat 1D and the satellite television system Digital+. Millions of viewers across Europe, North and South America have access to its open signal. While decorating the studio light panels were used for the first time on Russian TV. They can change the design of studios and a newsroom in a few seconds. Besides, the Spanish Channel will use all the resources of already operating English and Arabic channels. In November of 2009 a correspondent bureau was opened in Miami, a correspondent bureau in Buenos-Aires is scheduled to be open in the near future.
At present about 200 employees work in Spanish RT, including 35 foreign journalists from Argentina, Spain, Chili, Ecuador, Mexico, the USA and Bolivia. Among them there are well-known correspondents and presenters who worked for the largest European and Latin-American Channels such as TVE in Spain, TVN and Canal 13 in Chili, TV Azteca in Mexico and also CNN Espanol and Telemundo.
The official Internet site of the Spanish RT TV channel is located on actualidad.rt.com Its a fully-fledged multimedia resource. The site users can not only watch the latest international news on video and read them, and gain substantial information about Russia. The button en vivo provides access to RT live broadcast with as high quality as on air.
Earlier, in May of 2007 the Arabic Channel Rusia Al-Yaum began broadcasting and in December 2005 the English RT TV Channel went on air. Recently the Eurocommission named English RT in its report, saying that this channel has a true international impact along with BBC World è CNN International*. While in 2008 Rusia Al-Yaum and Al-Jazeera **were recognized to be most objective in their covering the war in Gaza.
We have no doubt that the Spanish Channel will reach its viewers and will be as much in demand from the Spanish speaking audience as our English and Arabic projects. We make absolutely different news from the international mainstream. Therefore, for example, in Washington we surpassed Al-Jazeera English *** by six and a half fold in viewers and Deutche Welle by five fold despite their high budgets. Viewers want to watch different stories, which no one else tells them about. Im sure that Latin America will take to us, and if we join the US cabel network, then Spanish speaking residents will benifit.” said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
*According to research by the European Audiovisual Observatory at the European Commission.
** According to telephone poll of the Iraqi TV channel Ap-Rai, 40 thousand people will be questioned.
***On the research: the research was carried out in Washington and its suburbs by Nielsen Media Research. 4574 respondents had been questioned by phone from May to July in 2009 among subscribers of the biggest operators of commercial TV (Comcast, RCN, Cox, DirecTV, Dish Networks), who know about RT and have access to it along with other channels. Men and women older than 18 years old participated in the poll.