Friday! TV channel: Five years on air
Friday! TV channel is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Over these years, the channel firmly established itself in the segment of entertainment television and became one of the most successful and fastest growing channels in Russia among an audience aged 14 to 44 thanks to its unique content.
Since its establishment, the channel has continued to grow its viewership share in the 14-44 age segment. According to Mediascope data, in 2014 the channel’s share was 2.2%, but by 2017 it reached 3.2%. At the beginning of 2018 Friday! once again beat its own record. As such, the average viewership share of the channel for February was 3.8%, which was the highest number since the channel started its broadcasts.
Original projects are the five most popular features on the channel. Among them - the second season of the show Patsanky 2 (Tomboys 2), which has a viewership share of 8.3%, reality show Sekretny Millioner (The Secret Millionaire) - 7.3%, travel show Oryol i Reshka (Heads or Tails) - 7.2%, and the project Na Nozhah (Knives at the Ready) - 7%.
At the moment, the channel’s portfolio of television brands includes 24 projects that represent various television genres. In 2017 the channel Friday! successfully launched 16 new projects and filmed the first sitcom of its own production - Lyubimtsy (Pets). According to Mediascope data, the share of TV viewing of the four premiere episodes of the series was 6.2% among audiences aged 14 to 44.
To create new shows and TV projects Friday! set up two production companies - Friday! Studio and NOZHI Production Center, which specializes in reality shows. NOZHI creates such shows for the channel as Sekretny Millioner, Na Nozhah, Nasledniki (Heirs), Adskaya Kukhnya (Hell’s Kitchen) and others. Meanwhile, Friday! Studio works with programs, shows and series. Among them, Utro Pyatnitsy (Friday Morning), Revizorro, Golos Ulits (Voice of the Streets), Revizolushka and others.
In 2017, Friday! and the journalism faculty of the Moscow State University launched the elective course ‘Studio of Friday!’. This author course on producing was developed by the general manager of the channel Nikolay Kartozia. Students and listeners of the course were taught how to analyze the media market and preferences of the audience. Moreover, ‘Studio of Friday!’ listeners were told how television projects are created and how scripts are written. As part of the course, the students analysed real case studies, from the idea phase to the project’s launch on the air. At the end of February 2018 the television channel launched the beauty show Makeupery (Makeup Artists), which was developed by a group of students from the TV school ‘Studio of Friday!’. The viewership share of the premiere episodes of the show among the audience aged 14 to 44 is 3.51%, which is higher than the average share of the channel. The viewership share of the best episode of the project was 4.4%.
Over its five years of work, the creative team of Friday! TV channel has been recognized with multiple international and national industry awards. The channel’s collection includes five TEFI awards for best reality show, best lifestyle entertainment program, best journalistic investigation and best evening talk show. Also in the treasury of the channel are 34 Mediabrand awards and six PromaxBDA statuettes. In 2017, Friday! received the gold and silver of the international award in the field of television marketing, promotion and design, PromaxBDA Asia, for the on-air promotion to Patsanky 2 in the nomination “Best reality show promo” and the promo video to the film The Wolf of Wall Street in the nomination “Best sound design.” The promo to Sekretny Millioner received a silver award in the category “Promo of a non-entertainment program/reality show” at the international PromaxBDA Global Excellence Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in the area of television marketing and design.