Their purpose is to pretend to be serious news outlets to amplify various social media phenomena by selectively reporting about them and repeating this over and over again, with the purpose of legitimizing the phenomenae.
The message that comes out is aligned to the goals of the Russian Federation. The messages that are repeated are chosen for political purposes. The point is to not speak to Russians but to the "disgruntled people" of the West. The main idea seems to be to amplify divisions, whatever those may be.
For instance, just look at what is coming now out related to the "Yellow Vests" in France.
These sites are not a channel for presenting facts or a "counterbalance to Western media". They are simpleton propaganda outlets, news theater that is one part of the media influence mechanism that the Russian leadership wields.
The narrative in the prominent articles is always quite predictable: NATO equals bad, USA equals culture imperialism, Europe equals falling apart, Ukrainians equals fascists, Russia the underdog does nothing wrong, and so on.
Once RT starts running articles detailing the corruption in Russia and why there is an opposition movement in the first place (hint: not due to foreign involvement) it might start gaining plausibility as an outlet for high quality fact-based journalism.