Vlad Riashyn

World Screen Weekly, April 10, 2008

CEO

Star Media

Not many media markets in Europe are experiencing steady annual growth, but in the CIS region, and in particular Russia and Ukraine, TV advertising, television and feature-film production and new-media platforms are all booming. Star Media is at the epicenter of all of this growth, with production facilities in both Russia and Ukraine. The company produces and distributes some 1,000 hours each year of content for various TV channels and platforms. It has worked with major players in the television world, including Telemundo and Central European Media Enterprises (CME), with which it co-produced a series for the CIS market based on a Romanian format.

The CEO of the Star Media group of companies, Vlad Riashyn, says that in Russia and Ukraine, “the production quality across all genres, from feature films to TV movies and TV [fiction], is on the rise. The budgets are also increasing. The level of directors, scriptwriters and actors is also going up. Today, the Russian television market can definitely be ranked first in Eastern Europe and one of the best in Europe at large.” And as a reflection of this growth, Star Media’s revenues have outperformed expectations.

Star Media’s library consists of some 2,000 hours, including military drama, action-detective, melodrama, family films and comedies, and its range of genres keeps growing. Recently, the company entered the feature-film market. This year, Star Media will release its first feature with an international movie star and will launch four new projects for both the CIS and foreign media markets.

Riashyn says that the company would like to offer its products not only to Russian-speaking TV channels, but also to other TV channels worldwide, where they could be dubbed, voiced over or subtitled.

Looking at his distribution business, Riashyn says that 3-D animated product can be very appealing to international broadcasters. “One of our projects, The History of the Russian State, is successfully running on Russian television, and thus we’ve created a new genre—historical animation—and want to spread it to new markets and topics.”

Riashyn is eager to do business with international partners. “Star Media Group is a young, dynamic, creative and truly innovative company,” he says. “It is open to cooperation and can become a reliable partner in the rapidly developing CIS media market.”