Publication date: 21 Apr 2023

On 20 April 2023, RuTube switched off advertisements before videos. The restriction applies to the automatic launch of ads before each video, while the advertising inserts in the middle and at the end of videos remain.

According to the service’s representatives, the acceleration of access was done in the interests of users. At the end of 2022, RuRube’s service and content satisfaction index grew by 25%. The new restriction should increase this indicator and improve user experience and comfort for viewers.

In April 2023, RuTube entered the top 3 apps in the AppStore. The video hosting app was in the top three in the Entertainment category after TikTok and Kinopoisk.

RuTube is gaining popularity

At the beginning of April 2023, RuTube’s monthly audience reached 40.4 million people. Compared with the previous year (April 2022 with 17.2 million users) the audience growth amounted to 134%. At the same time, the number of registered users reached 23 million.

The number of uploaded videos also increased significantly, reaching 5.2 million in the first quarter of 2023, up 173%. The average time of all views per day amounts to 36.5 million minutes.

• What is RuTube? It is a Russian online video service for hosting and watching videos, launched in 2006. It is owned by Ruform LLC, part of Gazprom-Media Holding. The platform offers various tools for creating and monetizing video content. Video viewing is available to everyone, registration is required to download videos. 

Who watches RuTube? Audience and interests

According to the service itself, RuTube’s audience is 52% female and 48% male.

The age of the most active users (24%) is between 25 and 34 years old, with slightly fewer (21%) viewers between 35 and 44 years old.

The majority of users (51%) prefer using a mobile app to watch RuTube, while 47% watch videos through a browser and 2% use Smart TV.

Users are most interested in various shows (22% of views), news and media channels (11%), politics (9%) and entertainment (7%). Video games account for 5.4% and sports for 2.3%.

Outlook for RuTube 2023 

Hosting’s general producer David Kocharov said that in 2023, RuTube will be focusing on the development of mobile application, launching loyalty program for the content creators and establishing new mobile studio for bloggers.

• As a reminder, in early 2023, Russian authorities announced that by 2030, the audience of domestic digital services is expected to increase several times. 

The main features of the Rutube Studio application: 

• video viewing and editing; uploading via mobile app;
• analytics on the channel, detailed information on the selected period with the ability to switch; 
• information about monetization and income in a special block;
• section for working with comments: opportunity to answer or delete; filter and fixing of the selected comment.

The new mobile Rutube Studio is scheduled to become available to bloggers in autumn 2023.

It is also planned to introduce neural networks to develop a recommendation system on Rutube, which works on the basis of machine algorithms.  The introduction of neural networks is also planned in the area of user support. Neural networks are already being used to moderate uploaded content, thus reducing the amount of manual work.