MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - Interfax maintained its leadership in 2012 among news agencies operating in Russia in terms of the frequency with which it is cited in top foreign and Russian media outlets, according to a survey based on major media databases.
Reports stored by Factiva, a business information and research tool, and Interfax's own SCAN comprehensive news analysis system were used as the basis for the study.
Interfax had the highest citation ratings among the three leading Russian news agencies in the world media based on an analysis of reports from Factiva's archives (31,000 leading news and business information sources in 200 countries).
In the "Major International News Agencies" category, Interfax ran ahead of RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS for the frequency of references as regards all sources.
Reuters' English-language newswires cited Interfax on 460 occasions, while there were 128 references to RIA Novosti, and 91 to ITAR-TASS, according to Factiva.
The English-language wires of Dow Jones had 761 references to Interfax, 50 to RIA Novosti and 7 to ITAR-TASS.
The French-language wires of Agence France Presse (AFP) had 909 references to Interfax, 446 to RIA Novosti, and 201 to ITAR-TASS.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had 5,419 references to Interfax, 1,745 to RIA Novosti and 103 to ITAR-TASS.
Spanish agency EFE cited Interfax on 668, RIA Novosti on 117, and ITAR-TASS on 12 occasions.
The German-language wires of Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) had 1,162 references to Interfax, 70 to ITAR-TASS, and 36 to RIA Novosti.
Italy's ANSA made 316 references to Interfax, 138 to ITAR-TASS, and 64 to RIA Novosti.
The English-language wires of China's Xinhua News Agency had 208 references to Interfax, 138 to ITAR-TASS, and 96 to RIA Novosti, according to Factiva.
The picture is similar in the "U.S. Printed Media Category," also according to Factiva. Interfax was cited on 1,322, RIA Novosti on 939, and ITAR-TASS on 625 occasions.
In the "British Printed Media" category, Interfax, RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS have records of 73, 38 and 34 references respectively.
In "German Printed Media," Interfax had 408, ITAR-TASS 181, and RIA Novosti 43 references.
The "French Printed Media" shows 410 references to Interfax, 312 to ITAR-TASS, and 213 to RIA Novosti, according to Factiva.
The study of references in the Russian media was based on SCAN (6,500 sources) and looked at eight principal Russian news agencies: Interfax, RIA Novosti, ITAR-TASS, Reuters, Prime, RosBusinessConsulting (RBC), Regnum and Rosbalt.
For the sake of objectivity and authenticity, references by news agencies to their own information were not taken into account in the study. Neither were blogs, Internet resources that could not be categorized as media outlets, or press digests - the purpose of excluding digests was to avoid duplications of findings.
Interfax was the leader for the total number of references in all Russian media, or about 3,000 sources, being cited on 102,391 occasions. RIA Novosti recorded 93,336 and ITAR-TASS 47,093 references. Then came Reuters (26,951), RBC (25,476), Prime (8,358), Rosbalt (6,797) and Regnum (5,563).
The more than 650 newspapers and magazines included in the "Russian Central and Federal Printed Media" category made 9,886 references to Interfax, 5,576 to RIA Novosti, 3,367 to Reuters, 1,771 to Prime, 1,725 to ITAR-TASS, 1,680 to RBC, 1,344 to Regnum and 208 to Rosbalt.
The 132 leading Russian television channels and radio stations included in the "Federal Television and Radio" category made 47,692 references to Interfax, 43,595 to RIA Novosti, 24,668 to ITAR-TASS, 3,532 to Reuters, 2,669 to RBC, 954 to Rosbalt, 697 to Regnum and 351 to Prime.
In "Regional Printed Media," Interfax was at the top in 12 of Russia's 19 most densely constituent territories surveyed in the category - the city of St. Petersburg, the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, the territories of Krasnoyarsk and Perm, and the regions of Kemerovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Rostov, Samara, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk, though in the latter it shared the leadership with RIA Novosti.
RIA Novosti was the leader in 7 of the 19 territorial units - the territories of Krasnodar, Primorye and Khabarovsk, and the regions of Volgograd, Voronezh, Irkutsk and Saratov.