Moscow - The media division of Russian natural gas giant Gazprom will acquire RuTube, a Russia-based video-sharing site based that claims 5.5 million monthly visitors, for about $15 million, Russian News & Information Agency (RIA Novosti) reports.

Gazprom-Media is a large player in Russia's media market; the company owns TV channels NTV and TNT, which have syndicated some of their programming on RuTube, according to Quintura.

RuTube competes in the video-sharing space in Russia with firms including Video@Mail.ru, Rambler Vision and the Russian version of YouTube.

Related Links:
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080306/100814167.html (RIA Novosti)

http://snipurl.com/217yz (Quintura)

http://www.gazprom-media.com/en

http://www.rutube.ru