LONDON: Ascent Media Network Services (AMNS), a division of Ascent Media Group, and Intelsat, a global communications leader, jointly announced on Tuesday that they have teamed up to deliver Channel One Russia Worldwide Network from Moscow into the United States. 
The channel was formerly known as Public Russian Television, or ORT and was claimed to be viewed by approximately 200 million local people. The Russian government owns 51 per cent of the broadcaster. Channel One will now be distributed to home cable viewers across the US via International Channel Networks (ICN) based in Centennial, Colorado.
Till now, AMNS provides international downlink, programme integration, time delay and server play-out for Channel One from its London facility. Henceforth, with AMNS' transatlantic fibre, the signal will be transmitted to the company's switching centre in New York where it will be routed to Intelsat's GlobalConnex infrastructure for delivery, an Intelsat company release stated.
Content will be carried out of Moscow over the Intelsat satellite at 342?E, downlinked at Intelsat's teleport in Germany, and transported via leased fibre facilities to Denver. At that point, ICN will re-package the content and oversee its distribution and marketing among US cable systems.
ICN reaches 13 million households in the US, hosting 24 hours of programming in 20 languages on its main channel and 14 premium channels.
The release quoted AMNS' senior vice president of global operations, Frank Luperella as saying, "Ascent Media's full service capabilities and strong vendor relationships make us the ideal solution for ORT. In bringing Russian news and entertainment content to the US market, we're pleased to have the ability to collaborate with a company like Intelsat. The vast extent and flexibility of the Intelsat infrastructure allowed for the quick and easy execution of this project."
Intelsat's president of media and entertainment - business unit, Jon Romm, was also quoted saying, "Companies wishing to distribute their content locally, regionally or internationally will find that Intelsat has made distribution quick, easy and very accessible. A solution like this one, with smart utilization of the right facilities to provide a more affordable solution, really demonstrates the breadth and capability of both Intelsat's and Ascent Media's networks."