Development Trends of Sports Broadcasting in Russia: «Sport», «Russia 2» and «Match TV» Channels Case Study

The topic of the present investigation deals with a wide range of problems concerning major issues pertaining to the field of sports broadcasting. The research focuses on revealing the main challenges faced by the Russian sports television industry. The general purpose of this project is to trace the evolution of national sports channels in order to define the main vector of their development into the mixed genre of sports and entertainment. The project reviews several units of theoretical literature on television, audience and sports broadcasting. The most substantial part of the scrutiny is represented by the analysis of the empirical database. The latter one is represented by the content of «Match TV» channel and its forerunners, official statistics, interviews with experts and an array of critical publications. The main methods used in the study are functional and qualitative research of the media object, interviews with experts and a comparative analysis. This study focuses on «Match TV» as a brand new phenomenon on the Russian media market, which creates a fertile ground for future investigation in this field. It is anticipated that the results of the scrutiny will contribute to the research of sports television in Russia, which up to this day lacks a sufficient academic base. The studies are intended to be easily adapted for practical purposes in the production process conducted by sports broadcasters.