Artur Janibekyan (, ) is a founder of Comedy Club Production, television producer and media manager. He is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts Emmy International.
Professional career
From 1993 to 1996, Janibekyan was an advertiser, administrator, project coordinator, and film set director at the Sharm company. Since 1994, he has been one of the founders and directors of the KVN team who won the 1997 Top KVN League Championship. From 2000 to 2005, he was the producer for the New Armenian Radio program Russian Radio and the producer of Good Evening with Igor Ugolnikov on STS from 2001 to 2002.
Comedy Club
In 2003, he created the comedy show Comedy Club with his comedy sketch friends. Comedy Club introduced Russian viewers to comedy. Since 2005 Comedy Club has aired on TNT (a Russian TV channel). In 2006, Comedy Club entered the top 10 of the most commercially successful Russian projects (a ninth place with 3.5 million dollars) according to Forbes magazine. In 2007, he founded the multi-functional producer center Comedy Club Production, where he serves as CEO and general producer till nowadays. This year GQ magazine (Russia) named Artur Person of the Year in the 'Producer of the Year' category.
In 2008 he launched the 24-hour humor channel Comedy TV.
In November 2009 he opened a chain of restaurants under the name Comedy Café.
He founded 7 Art, the company that produced the popular sitcoms UNI and the TV series The Interns. 7 Art later became a part of Comedy Club Production.
In 2011, the controlling stake in Comedy Club Production was sold to TNT, a popular TV channel in Russia. The stake amounted to 350 million dollars, and was a record sale for the Russian TV.
In 2012 he received the “Media-Manager of Russia 2012” award for "outstanding achievements in creating brands and TV programs, as well as for the largest business deal in the history of Russian television and content production."
In 2013, Comedy Club Production took second place in the list of the largest companies producing content for major federal Russian TV channels according to Forbes Magazine.
Gogol. The Beginning (the mini-series)
In 2017, Artur Janibekyan partnered with Valeriy Fedorovich and Evgeniy Nikishov became a producer of the Gogol. The Beginning project – the first mini-series in the world to be widely released in theaters. The mini-series broke even on the day of its premiere and set several box-office records. The production was ranked in the top 10 ten movie theatre releases in 2017. In addition to Russia and the CIS, Gogol. The Beginning was released to the United States, UK, Germany, Spain, Austria and Cyprus. Gogol's promotional campaign received several professional awards and diplomas and aroused interest in the professional community during its presentation in Cannes at MIPCOM.
House arrest (the series) In 2018, Janibekyan collaborated with Semyon Slepakov and Alexander Dulerain to produce the series House arrest, which was considered the "best series of 2018". House arrest took first place in the top 5 Russian television series, and became an eight-time winner of the VII APKIT Prize. The series was awarded a special prize of the 32nd film awards "Nika" "for creative achievements in the art of television cinema". House arrest”also won the ninth international television Festival "TEFI-Commonwealth" awards.
In March 2015, Janibekyan took charge of the entertainment television group, which included four terrestrial TV channels: TNT, TV-3, Friday! and 2х2. Janibekyan became one of the top 5 best managers in the country's media industry in the annual rating, "TOP-1000 Russian Managers" published in Kommersant. In November, the TV-3 TV channel was relaunched under Artur Janibekyan's management. On January 1, 2016, the new TV channel was launched: TNT-4.
In June 2016, Artur Janibekyan became the General Director of TNT. On July 7, Janibekyan won the "Media-Manager of Russia 2016" award.
In January 2017, the TNT-4 channel became the first federal TV channel to expand its broadcasting reach beyond the country's borders within a year. In May 2017, the Friday! TV channel was launched internationally. The international TV channel versions were created for the Russian speakers living abroad and the Russian and Russian-speaking tourists around the world.
On July 6, 2017, Janibekyan was awarded the title of "Media Manager of Russia" for the third consecutive year. The award was received for "development and effective management, for outstanding achievements in creating entertaining and humorous content".