Kyiv-based Media Info LLC has increased its stake in Kyiv-based TeleRadioSvit television and radio broadcasting company LLC, which broadcasts satellite television programs under the TVi logo, from 43.6 percent to 100 percent, reads a posting on the Web site of the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting.
The report says that the council on Wednesday amended the license of the broadcast rights holder.
According to the document, talk-show host Oleksiy Lichman was appointed a member of the editorial team, replacing Mykola Kniazhytsky (became an MP in 2012) and Volodymyr Pavliuk (moved to STB in 2011) and Vaclav Havel, who died at the end of 2011.
As of September 2012, the co-owners of TVi along with Media Infor were Seradgill Holdings Ltd. (49 percent) and International Media Company LLC (Kyiv, 7.4 percent). The national council said that the share of Seradgill Holdings was earlier 92.6 percent.
The key owner of Media Info as of September 2013 was Wilcox Ventures Ltd.
The net revenue of TeleRadioSvit in 2011 grew by 46.8 percent, to Hr 19.22 million, while its net loss plunged by 2.9 times, to Hr 16.12 million.
As reported, there has been a long-running conflict over TVi. There have been court actions on the matter in Ukrainian and foreign courts involving businessmen Konstantin Kagalovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky. The latter tried to regain control over the channel or funds invested.
However, in 2009, Kniazhytsky told Interfax-Ukraine that the channel does not belong either to Kagalovsky or Gusinsky.
“There are relations, but it cannot be said that they are owners of the channel,” he said then, not disclosing the names of the end owners.
In 2012, when Media Info LLC appeared among shareholders of the TVi channel, the then director of the channel Kniazhytsky told the Telekritika publication that the introduction of Ukrainian co-owners to the structure of the shareholders is linked to the observation of the requirements of the law on the political advertisements, although the end owner of the channel is still Kagalovsky.
