The government will cut funding of RT, Russia's international television news network, by 1.84 billion rubles ($30 million) next year, or almost 9 percent, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Friday.
RT, which broadcasts Russia's point of view in English, Spanish and Arabic, will receive 19 billion rubles ($307 million) from the budget in 2016, Vedomosti said. Considering the sharp devaluation of the ruble during the past year, the cut in real terms in funding for the station, which has studios in a number of countries including the U.S. and Britain, will be much deeper.
However, Rossiya Segodnya, another state news agency charged with representing the Russian view in multiple languages, will get a funding increase of 660 million rubles ($10.6 million) to 6.7 billion rubles ($108 million), the report said.
Overall, state media will receive 80.2 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) from the budget next year.
