As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Russians continue to seek respite from the conflict by turning to movie and TV streaming services, including at least one that is showing HBO hit shows.
In a story on how the Russian government strongarms media companies into censoring content in line with Putin’s conservative social agenda, New York Times reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev notes that American television shows are still airing in the federation despite U.S. sanctions largely barring Western companies from receiving payments from Russia.
The Russian streaming service Amediateka has in recent months aired some of the network’s most popular shows despite claims by HBO and its parent company WarnerMedia that it had halted content licensing with Russian entities.
Kurmanaev writes,
How Amediateka continues to show some of the latest Western shows in Russia is a mystery. Strict sanctions make it mostly illegal for Western companies to receive payments from Russia. And after the invasion, many Western businesses said they were leaving Russia even before the strongest sanctions took effect, to avoid reputational costs.
One of those companies was HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia.
“Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, WarnerMedia is pausing all new business in Russia,” the company’s chief executive at the time, Jason Kilar, said in a widely reported memo to employees in March 2022. “This includes ceasing broadcast of our channels, halting all new content licensing with Russian entities and pausing our planned theatrical and games releases.”
Yet since then, Amediateka has added at least 46 new TV seasons created by WarnerMedia subsidiaries to its database, according to Mediazona’s analysis. This includes the third season of HBO’s dark comedy “The White Lotus,” which was released this year.
An HBO spokeswoman told the newspaper that the network no longer had a licensing agreement in Russia, and declined to answer further questions, according to the report.
Read the full story here.