MTV Russian names launch director

MTV Russia is to relaunch on October 1 and Viacom has named Yana Churikova to take charge of the launch of the new channel.

Churikova was one of the original line-up of presenters on MTV Russian in 1998 and has also worked for Viva and leading Russian free-to-air service Channel One.

Viacom’s relaunch of the channel follows the ending of its licensing partnership with Profmedia. The previous version of MTV in Russia went off air at the end of May.

A website for the new service has been up and running since June 1.