Russian streaming services move to shared storefront model as Start's revenue rises 68%

1 сентября 2026 · telesputnik

Eleven Russian series aired on two or more streaming platforms at once in the first half of 2026, almost double the year-earlier count, and the number of titles locked to a single service fell from 17 to 13, according to Kinopoisk Pro Index data cited by Telesputnik. Start's revenue rose 68% to 11.5 billion rubles in 2025, its subscriber base nearly tripled to 9 million, and its revenue growth hit 51% in the first half of 2026, the fastest pace in the market; Start chief executive Ilya Alekseev credits partner subscriptions sold alongside Okko, Wink, Premier and Ivi as the main driver. Kinopoisk, the market leader with roughly a third of total revenue, now sells Ivi subscriptions inside its own app, and total market revenue reached 99.5 billion rubles in the first half, up 31% year over year. Wink and Kion are building in the opposite direction: Wink chief executive Anton Volodkin says series investment rose 12% in the first half and the platform joins co-productions only when a project's economics call for it, while Alexey Byrdin of the Internet Video Association notes that partners in a joint show can "keep exclusivity, even if it's shared exclusivity."

A show airing on three platforms at once turns single-platform exclusivity deals into shared reach plays, and subscription bundles sold inside a rival's app blur the line between a platform's own audience and its partners' audience. Planning and attribution work across Russian streaming now needs to account for content and subscribers moving between services that used to operate as closed catalogs, and the split between storefront platforms and exclusive-content platforms is likely to keep shifting each platform's pricing and negotiating position over the next few quarters.