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Rutube, stylized as RUTUBE, is a Russian video platform. It includes a library of licensed content including movies, series, cartoons, shows, and live broadcasts. It also hosts blogs, podcasts, video game streams, and educational content.
Rutube has web, iOS, Android and Smart TV versions. Its audience increased from 7.7 million in January 2022 to over 50 million in March 2022.
All uploaded content is checked by moderators to block anything that is pornographic, insulting, Spamming, advocates drug use or violence, or is otherwise abusive and in violation of established rules. The platform uses automatic content identification for prevention of copyright infringement.
Since 2007, the service has supported built-in media players and the creation of whole-scale sections on third-party websites via its API. As part of an affiliate program, Rutube shares income from advertisements with the owners of resources who host the player.
In 2007, the founders employed Askar Tuganbayev as producer; previously, he had managed Active Time Battle Internet projects and worked as a producer at O2TV and Gameland TV. While staying in Moscow, Tuganbayev built relationships with partners and looked for an investor for the company. Rutube attracted some private investors: Mangrove Capital Partners Venture Fund and Gazprom-Media. Negotiations with Gazprom Media started in the summer of 2007, and legal arrangements lasted from March 2008 through November 2008. Speculation on the deal's size stirred up public interest. Kommersant claimed that company's valuation ranged from $5 million to $15 million; in an interview with Vedomosti, tech CEOs Dmitry Grishin, German Klimenko, and Viktor Lavrenko each suggested $5 million to $10 million, $3 million to $5 million, and $1 million, respectively. In the summer of 2008, Kommersant stated that the Rutube control stake had been acquired at $15 million in total and that the founders had received motivation payments.
In October 2010, the Rutube player was integrated into Vkontakte. In April 2011, a section was added to Odnoklassniki with the video platform's content, and ad campaigns were launched in September. In September 2011, paid video content was added: live Russian Football Premier League streams maintained in cooperation with NTV Plus, a satellite TV provider. In October 2011, the user streaming service, which had functioned since the launch of the platform, stopped working.
In March 2011, under the supervision of the Rutube managerial staff, the Now.ru online movie theater was launched in the service's technical base. The library included licensed content provided by Sony Pictures, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., Playboy, Lionsgate, BBC, MTV, and Nickelodeon.
In 2014, the company planned to change its stockholder structure as part of a deal between Rostelecom and Gazprom Media. It was expected that Rutube would merge, under a single brand, with the TV-oriented Zoomby.ru and the movie-oriented Now.ru. The deal was approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, but it was canceled after the Gazprom Media reshuffle.
In February 2015, Rutube partnered with Sputnik Deti (), a search engine for children, presenting videos from the secure children's section in search results. In June, Rutube's content appeared in a separate section of V Metro, as part of Rutube's cooperation with the MaximaTelecom Wi-Fi network of the Moscow Metro. In July, Vadim Fetotov, former CEO of Groupon in Russia and Ukraine, became CEO of Rutube and took control of Gazprom Media assets. In October, Rutube content appeared on the updated Kinopoisk service.
The system relied on free access to the content at the cost of having to watch ads carefully and to the end.
All videos hosted by the service would be available after a free sign-up via phone number.
The service would host movies and series rather than user-generated content. All projects by Premier, TNT, Pyatnitsa!, and other major Russian TV channels were available for free.
The "closed" approach resulted in the deletion of the Rutube player from major platforms like VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.
In late December 2020, Rutube canceled mandatory sign-up for those planning to confine their activities to watching videos. Users wanting to comment or post their own videos would need to sign up via email, not via phone number. Also, Rutube switched back to the classic monetization model - relying on free video streaming with mandatory ad-viewing. The polling system was canceled.
In April, Rutube was relaunched. The changes influenced the web version: which featured a completely new interface, intuitive navigation, a new color palette, and new content-management tools.
The site added new sections: "Podcasts", "Tuition", and "Goods". Also, new monetization tools appeared: donations, subscriptions, and live online sales.
In August 2021, Alexey Nazarov, former ER-Telecom top manager, replaced Roman Maximov as the new CEO of Rutube. Nazarov, however, left barely six months later, in March 2022, to be replaced by Kaspersky Lab veteran Alexander Moiseev, who in turn was replaced by Sergey Kosinsky only a year later.
A large-scale cyberattack forced the video platform offline, hours before the scheduled streaming of the Moscow 9 May 2022 Victory Day parade. It turned out that the platform security audit was outsourced to a Ukrainian company, which used a purposely left backdoor to wipe out most of its content and install pro-Ukrainian content.
In July 2022, two Russian pranksters, Vovan and Lexus, arranged prank interviews, luring a number of European politicians to speak with their impersonation of the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko. Via Zoom, they used old videos of Klitschko to speak with Berlin mayor Franziska Giffey, EU-commissioner Ylva Johansson, and other politicians. Vovan and Lexus claimed in an interview with the German RBB Fernsehen that Rutube financed them.
In August 2024, the RuTube app was removed from the App Store. The video service explained this by sanctions from Apple and promised to fight for its restoration.
In August 2024, Rutube launched a function for transferring video content from YouTube, access to which has been difficult in Russia for several weeks. Up to two thousand videos can be transferred in one session, the maximum size of one is 25 gigabytes, the maximum duration is 5 hours.
On September 11, 2024, Rutube introduced the advertising platform Rutube Media. The platform is based on its own player, which is integrated into various websites.
On October 3, 2024, Rutube got blocked in Moldova.
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