RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russia's first 24h international news channel broadcasting in English language. RT TV channel is funded by Russian Government and designed to "reflect Russia's position on major issues of international politics" and "inform the audience about news and events in Russian life". As it was said by Chief Editor of RT television channel, Margarita Simonyan : Foreign media not always adequately reflect the events in Russia. The first thing, according to studies, comes to mind for foreigners at the word "Russia" are "communism", "snow" and "poverty." We would like to present a more diverse picture of life in our country... We will try to show Russia as a foreigner to see it when coming into the country. RT was funded by the budget of Russian Federation, which allocated $ 30 million annually from 2005 till 2009. RT features quite diverse political and news programming alongside with cultural documentaries. News is the main RT news program, which is airing every half-an-hour. Another news program, Business is covering world major economical news; the program also features brief review of the Russian business news. RT TV also has two interview programs. It is Interview with Sofiko Shevardnadze featuring exclusive interviews with famous politics and businessmen; and CrossTalk, which has more discussion-shaped format and hosted by Peter Lavelle and Elena Hanga. Anna Fedorova and Neil O'Harvi present the RT evening show Prime Time Russia covering major news and events in Russia. And Alexander Gurnov with guests are talking about the day's most significant events in Spotlight talk show. Every month RT presents Technology Update, a program featuring the most interesting discoveries and achievements of science.

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