Ruptly GmbH is an international videonews agency specializing in video on demand, based in Berlin, Germany. It is a division of the RT news network. Ruptly says that it is editorially and commercially independent, but its sole shareholder is ANO "TV-Novosti", a Russian government-funded non-profit organisation which also controls RT. During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime MinisterVladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance of Russia. Ruptly operates worldwide, serving over 1,400 clients globally. These include large media groups, broadcast networks, video bloggers and online publishers. Clients include Al Jazeera, CBS, NHK, and new wave online publishers such as LADbible.
History
Ruptly joined the German Commercial Register as a Berlin-based GmbH in July 2012, before officially launching operations on April 4, 2013. It operates as a German commercial entity with ANO TV Novosti as its principle shareholder. Since its inception, Ruptly has focused on providing video news content, live video-streaming and operational support to broadcasters of varying size around the world. It has since launched new pricing models to cater to smaller organizations with lower budgets including Ruptly PASS, launched in September 2018, which allows users to access unlimited video content on a subscription basis. According to Dinara Toktosunova, Ruptly’s CEO, the service is intended to “support the growth of emerging and mid-sized digital publishers" with the intention of inspiring "talented publishers to strengthen their production, experiment with new video formats, and of course grow their audiences." In 2019, Ruptly began launching dedicated platforms to serve its audiences in their native languages. To date this includes Ruptly Spanish, launched in summer 2019, which provides Spanish-language video, scripts and a dedicated website.. Plans for an Arabic equivalent were announced earlier in 2019. Ruptly has launched an in-house verification unit, which is used to check the accuracy of content acquired from independent contributors. The unit has revealed inaccuracies in multiple news stories, including a report containing inaccurate comments attributed to a senior Iranian military official. However, Ruptly also cooperated with "journalists" who explicitly collaborated with Russian FSB federal security service and presented fake news about conflict in Donbass in Ukraine Ruptly coverage includes much of what is covered on RT including politics, finance, sports, science, technology, entertainment and light news. The agency has reported on Russia, European policies, NSA surveillance, the German elections of 2013, the Middle East and the Syrian conflict. The live events that Ruptly broadcasts include elections, protests all over the world, including the Gilet Jaunes movement, which Ruptly covered live—,international talks such as P5+1, trials, and spacewalks, including the first panoramic view of the Earth, captured from the International Space Station. Ruptly covered the arrest of Julian Assange at the Embassy of Ecuador, London in April 2019. Ruptly was the only news agency present and had been shooting at the embassy around the clock for at least six days with a crew of five working shifts..
Organization
Ruptly consists of an international team headquartered in Germany, with additional offices located in Moscow and Beijing. The agency also engages a global network of freelance video journalists, known as stringers, to capture on-demand content at the scene of events. These are located throughout the world in locations including Washington, Damascus, London, Madrid, Gaza and Cairo. Ruptly also accepts user-generated content via social media and its dedicated Ruptly Stringer app. Ruptly's organization also includes the Berlin-based subsidiary Redfish. Also based in Berlin is the German registered Maffick media, of which Ruptly, itself a subsidiary of the Russian RT television network, is a majority shareholder. "Working for... Maffick is not an endorsement of the policies of its sponsors", said one of its video presenters, Rania Khalek, in an interview with CNN in February 2019. The pages of Maffick's Facebook page, as of that month, began to disclose their links to the Russian government. The Ruptly agency broadcasts live and allows TV stations and online media to receive and broadcast in real time. It also has a video-on-demand service. The service also sells footage to others on its website.
Products and services
Ruptly operates as a B2B news agency with three core areas: video news content, live video streaming and operational support. Through its operational arm, Ruptly Ops, the agency provides localized broadcasting services to its clientele, including live stand-up positions for TV network journalists, on-demand filming and multi-camera studios at locations around the world, with previous projects including the provision of a variety of broadcast services in multiple host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.. In September 2018, Ruptly introduced a new digital subscription model, Ruptly Pass, which is aimed at individuals and media operating on lower budgets and allows users to access Ruptly’s content for 12.50 euros per month. According to Matt Tabaccos, Chief Commercial Officer at Ruptly, the model was developed to “widen the accessibility of good quality content that has previously been the privilege of a big budget TV channel or corporation.”
