MOSCOW, DECEMBER 22, 2011 – An RT YouTube channel video was the most watched news item on the video hosting platform in 2011, according to YouTube year-end statistics published by Google.
RT’s video* featuring helicopter footage of tsunami waves approaching the shores of Japan was watched over 20 million times on Youtube. RT was the first ever news channel to break the 500 million view threshold on Youtube, with total channel views currently over 630 million. «RT is our trump card, one of the, if not the biggest news provider on YouTube worldwide», - said YouTube’s director of video partnerships Patrick Walker (MIPCOM 2011). RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan added: "We take great pride in being the leading global newsmaker on YouTube. When we began working with the global video platform, we could not have imagined such rapid success”. In 2007 RT became the first Russian TV channel to start posting its footage on Youtube. In March of this year the channel was the most viewed globally, having outdone Vevo, the biggest music video web site. Official year-end 2011 statistics were published by Google on the official Youtube blog.** * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3AdFjklR50 ** http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-were-we-watching-this-year-lets.html