MOSCOW, DECEMBER 16, 2014 – RT’s five main channels on YouTube have racked up more than 2 billion views in total, outperforming all other international TV news networks.
RT’s YouTube presence includes channels in English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, plus a separate RT America news channel. With over 2 billion views in total, RT is far ahead of its main competitors, outperforming CNN more than three times, Al Jazeera by 2.4 times, and Euronews by 3.6 times.
“Such a significant number shows that RT continues to lead in promoting alternative opinions online – the space that used to be dominated by the mainstream media,” RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan commented on the achievement. “We are proud of this, and we will continue working hard to remain YouTube’s number one TV news channel.”
RT is also far ahead of all its competitors by the total number of YouTube subscribers. With more than 2.5 million followers, RT beats BBC News by 5.2 times, Euronews – 5 times, CNN, by 2.8 times, and Al Jazeera by almost two times.
Yuri Khazanov, the head of YouTube’s partnership program in Russia and CIS, commented that “Reaching more than 2 billion views and 2.5 million subscribers confirms RT’s status as the largest TV news network on YouTube.”
RT International, RT’s English-language news channel, leads the way with 1.3 billion views and 1.4 million subscribers. In 2014 RT International was honored with a Gold YouTube Play Button, awarded to channels with more than one million subscribers. RT’s channels in other languages, boasting more than 100,000 subscribers each, were distinguished with Silver Play Buttons.
RT's flagship channel is the world's first news media to garner 1 billion views on YouTube. RT’s footage of the meteorite crash in the Chelyabinsk Region became YouTube’s top news video of 2013, with 38 million views. In 2012,the Pew Research Center named RT as the most popular news channel on YouTube.