MOSCOW. July 24 (Interfax) - Russian television channel TNT grew faster than its competitors last year and was the only one of the five TV companies with revenue of more than 10 billion rubles to see revenue grow faster than the Russian TV advertising market, figures from companies and the SPARK-Interfax database show.

TNT-Teleset reported earlier in its financial statement that revenue grew 24.5% to 13.4 billion rubles in 2012. The channel's advertising revenue increased by 27%, the company said in its annual report, released after the annual shareholder meeting in June.

Advertising on terrestrial TV channels grew 9% to 140 billion rubles last year, the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia has reported.

TNT moved its focus to a new buying audience in 2012 - all viewers from 14 to 44 years of age - and took the top spot in this target audience among all Russian channels, with a share of 13.4%. CTC had a 10.3% share of this audience in 2012, TNT said in its report, citing TNS data. CTC also considered refocusing on the 14-44 audience, but in 2013 it began focusing on a broader audience, all viewers 10-45 years.

TNT aims to maintain its share of the 14-44% audience at a minimum of 13% in 2013, the company said in its annual report.

Top three see growth slow

Russia's leading TV channel, Channel One increased revenue by less than 1% in 2012, the financial statement the company released earlier shows. Channel One's advertising revenue was flat 28.2 billion rubles last year, after growing 19% in 2011 from 23.7 billion rubles in 2010, the company's annual report shows.

State television and radio company VGTRK, which along with TV channels Rossiya-1, Rossiya-2, Rossiya-24 and Rossiya-K also includes radio stations Mayak, Radio Rossii, Kultura, Vesti FM and Yunost and a number of other media assets, increased revenue by 6% to 25.8 billion rubles in 2012, the SPARK-Interfax database shows. VGTRK's revenue grew by 21% to 24.4 billion rubles in 2011.

NTV also saw revenue growth slow last year, to 8.8% from more than 25% in 2011. However, NTV was the top rated terrestrial channel by average daily share of viewers over the age of 18, with 14.7% compared to Channel One's 14.3% share of this audience and Rossiya-1's 13.9%, NTV said in its annual report. NTV expects to keep its audience share at 14-15% in 2013.

NTV said that one of the main risks for its business is the continued fragmentation of the market and contraction of the audience of the main national TV channels as it is drawn away to the variety of niche and thematic channels.

The audience of "second tier" channels is also growing, NTV said. Channel 5 is leading by audience growth for the second consecutive year, and the series brands of CTC (Kukhnya, Svetofor, Zakrytaya Shkola) and TNT (Realnye Patsany, Interny, Deffchonki) are becoming an increasingly noticeable presence in competition for primetime viewers.

CTC Media, which includes the CTC, Domashny and Peretz channels (the legal entities in the SPARK-Interfax database are CJSC CTC, CJSC Novy Kanal and CJSC TV Daryal), has also noted that fragmentation is having a negative impact on the audience figures of the major terrestrial channels.

CTC Media, the only public company in the sector, reported earlier that its advertising revenue grew 4% to $775.8 million in 2012 (in rubles, advertising revenue in Russia grew 9%). Revenue grew 2% to $483.6 million at the CTC channel, 5% to $95 million at Domashny and 22% to $72.7 million at Peretz, CTC Media reported earlier.

TV Tsentr was the only major channel to see revenue decline, the SPARK-Interfax database shows. The company's operating loss rose to 3.24 billion rubles from 3.17 billion rubles in 2011, TV Tsentr reported. However, TV Tsentr closed last year with a net profit of 2.08 billion rubles, compared to 5.13 billion rubles in 2011.

The company attributed the drop in net profit to payments on profit tax. TV Tsentr, which is 99.31% owned by Moscow, receives 3.126 billion rubles in subsidies from the city, the company said in its annual report.

Financial results of TV companies in 2012 (Source: SPARK-Interfax database and annual reports; '000 rubles):