MTV Russia will stop airing in mid-2013 due to falling ratings, the holding company that controls the music channel has confirmed.
"It's true, as of June 1, 2013, MTV will be replaced by a new entertainment channel for young people called 'Pyatnitsa' [Friday]," ProfMedia president Nikolai Kartozia told Kommersant in an interview published Tuesday.
Unidentified sources had predicted the station's closure in a report that appeared in the Vedomosti business daily Dec. 6.
Kartozia explained the decision to close the station by saying that MTV Russia had ceased to be "the music channel that we all once loved."
MTV Russia's ratings have dropped off because of the growing popularity of listening to music online, he said, adding that the channel "is no longer effective."
MTV Russia, which started airing in 1998, is among the 20 most popular television channels in the country, according to TNS analysts.
ProfMedia bought MTV Russia in 2007.
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