Yonhap News TV signs broadcast accord with Russian TV

Thursday 11 Aug 2011
Yonhap News TV said today that it has concluded a cooperation agreement with Russia Today (RT), a Moscow-based 24-hour news channel, ahead of the launch of its broadcasting service in South Korea later this year, Yonhap News Agency reports.

Under the agreement signed between Kim Chang-hoe, executive director of Yonhap News TV, and Alexey Nikolov, president and CEO of RT, in Moscow yesterday, the two companies will exchange video news content, documentary programmes, interviews and broadcast personnel, company officials said.

They said the deal will allow the two companies to use each other’s video news content on large-scale disasters and accidents, interviews with experts and influential figures as well as special news programmes and documentary products. The two parties also agreed to promote staff exchanges.

Mr Nikolov expressed hope for mutually beneficial constructive cooperation while pledging to extend all necessary assistance to the new all-news South Korean TV channel.

Yonhap News TV is an affiliate of Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s key newswire service that produces content for newspapers, broadcasters, Internet portals, the government and private enterprises, distributing some 3,000 news articles per day. Yonhap has 62 reporting staff in 46 major cities in 35 countries.

Launched as an English-language news channel in December 2005, RT currently broadcasts news and current affairs 24 hours a day through satellite and cable networks to 100 countries in five continents in English, Spanish and Arabic.