Le triomphe de Russia Today

Le triomphe de Russia Today

La station TV Russia Today (RT), avec, principalement pour nous, son site RT.com, célèbre aujourd’hui un triomphe pour sa diffusion et sa popularité, en devenant la première station TV d’information à atteindre le milliard de visions de ses vidéos sur YouTube. Cette audience n’a jusqu’ici été atteinte que par des sites ou des stations opérant dans les domaines du “divertissement“ au sens large. Bien entendu, cette performance contribue à renforcer le prestige d’une chaîne qui reste considérée comme largement alternative à la pression de communication des systèmes et des réseaux des grands médias d’information-Système des pays du bloc BAO, essentiellement des USA.

Nous avions déjà noté la pénétration de RT dans des domaines de l’information jusqu’alors fermés aux sources hors-Système. C’est principalement lors des événements du mouvement Occupy que nous avions signalé ce phénomène (voir le 15 octobre 2011). On doit signaler que cette affirmation de RT s’est faite en même temps que celle de la station et du site iranien PressTV.ir, les deux réseaux tendant à occuper la place tenue jusqu’alors, et depuis 2002-2003, par la chaîne qatari Aljazeera. C’est au printemps 2011 (voir le 13 mars 2011), en même temps que démarrait l’expédition libyenne où le Qatar tenait la place d’honneur au sein du bloc BAO, que l’on put acter la “chute d’Aljazeera” dans le sens qu’on dit, ce qui fut d’ailleurs acté par RT lui-même, se posant ainsi en successeur et principal diffuseur de l’information antiSystème. Le succès de RT donne effectivement une bonne mesure de la diffusion et de la pénétration d’une information à tonalité antiSystème affirmée. Il contribue d’une part à mettre en question la validité et la pertinence de la presse-Système dans les pays du bloc BAO, d’autre part à renforcer la validité et la pertinence de la presse et du commentaire antiSystèmedans les pays du bloc BAO, faits en général à partir de sites et de publications hors du circuit-Système.

Ce 3 juin 2013, RT a publié un texte sur le résultat qu’il vient d’obtenir...

«It's official: RT is the first TV news channel to reach 1 billion views on the video-sharing website YouTube, beating its long-established rivals to the mark. RT is the first dedicated news network to join YouTube's elite “1 billion club”, dominated by comedy clips, music videos and entertainment shows produced by such networks as BBC or CBS. “We proved that the mass YouTube audience isn’t just about kittens and Justin Bieber. There’s real demand for serious news online delivered in the right way,” says RT chief online content editor Kirill Karnovich-Valua.

»“It’s a massive landmark,” Google VP and Head of Content for YouTube Robert Kyncl commends RT’s achievement, attributing the network’s success to “learning and earning” an online viewer base. To celebrate the success, RT will broadcast a special “Billion Bulletin”, featuring our biggest viral stories and their heroes, on Monday at 18:00 GMT – on air, online and of course on YouTube.

»RT began broadcasting in 2005 – the same year YouTube came online – challenging the news media consensus and reaching out to a savvy viewer base. “Our viewers are people who think deeply about what is happening in the world today. The things that really matter. Those who get tired of, say, round-the-clock coverage of the Royals, or a celebrity death. They are people with a broad range of opinions,” says Karnovich-Valua.

»After low returns from early ventures on YouTube, the channel came to a policy decision. “YouTube must be a showcase of your brand. Every posted clip must provoke a response, spark a debate. That's why we have a very selective editorial policy. Our YouTube channel is a kind of a deep digest - where you can find a dynamic mix of RT's best news reports, raw videos, in-depth documentaries and shows,” says Karnovich-Valua. “RT was one of the first TV channels to come to YouTube, and one of the first to really ‘get’ the YouTube generation – those who seek out videos themselves, and then share them with their friends,” says Danielle Tiedt, YouTube’s VP of marketing.

»What at first seemed an underground phenomenon, relying entirely on digital word-of-mouth, soon exploded to become one of the key hubs of the internet. In turn, RT reaped the rewards - 19,000 videos have attracted over 6 million comments. As millions tuned in, the broadcast channel and RT on YouTube found their voice (or rather, many articulate, persuasive, and sometimes angry voices).

»Keiser Report, the hard-hitting financial show presented by Max Keiser with his wife Stacy Herbert has been a hit since its launch in 2009. And while not everyone agrees with his views, the endlessly watchable Nigel Farage has been known far longer to the RT audience than most of the British electorate. One of RT’s biggest coups was The Julian Assange Show. Hundreds of thousands watched lengthy and dense conversations between the WikiLeaks founder and some of the world’s iconoclasts like Slavoj Zizek, Noam Chomsky, and Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah.

»Amid widespread media cheerleading during 2011’s Arab Spring, RT’s experts and correspondents were some of the first to anticipate the fallout of the seismic political shift in the Middle East. RT was the only large TV channel to send its cameras to what seemed like a marginal New York protest on September 17, 2011, under the strange name of Occupy Wall Street. As that demonstration grew into a worldwide phenomenon, encompassing millions in dozens of countries, RT remained the portal of choice for Occupiers everywhere.

»Yet it’s not just big stories. Internet privacy and piracy, US drones, GM-food safety – RT has produced arguably more in-depth coverage of these 21st-century issues than any of its rivals. “We know drone warfare always provokes heated debate among our audience. There are so many issues there – freedom, security, accountability – touch-paper issues to web users and this is the conversation we want people to have,” says Karnovich-Valua. Yet despite creating thousands of hours of specially-tailored content, the most viewed videos are inevitably the awe-inspiring, and often terrifying moments in which news media is merely the witness. The cameramen are often not professionals, and sometimes not even human, but the impact is undeniable...»

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