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MOSCOW -- Russian media group Gazprom Media -- owned by the country's state controlled natural gas monopoly -- has agreed to buy a controlling stake in Tricolor TV, Russia's top pay TV platform.

Run by the National Satellite Company, Tricolor TV was set up four years ago and has more than 3.5 million subscribers. It broadcasts to European Russia via Eutelsat's W4 satellite and Russian Satellite Communication's Bonum-1 satellite over Siberia.

Tricolor TV is aimed at a mass market audience and airs 34 channels across Russia.

The deal -- the value of which was not disclosed in a Gazprom Media announcement in Moscow Tuesday -- gives the media group's premium satellite service NTV-Plus access to a much wider subscriber base, which will now number more than six million.

Tricolor TV has a wider subscriber base than other pay TV platforms in Russia, with annual revenues of around $70 million in a cable and satellite market now worth an estimated annual $1 billion.