National television council to monitor providers that disconnected TVi Channel

The National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting will monitor all providers of program services regarding the disconnection of the TVi Channel.

The head of the council, Volodymyr Manzhosov, announced this at a briefing after a council meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday, Sept. 4.

"The national council will monitor all providers of program services that broadcast this channel, so that we can have all of the necessary information as to what channels are disconnected, to what extent they are disconnected, and what other channels, apart from TVi, are disconnected from cable networks," he said.

As reported, on July 20, 2012, TVi channel declared the exclusion of the channel from the cable networks of the Triolan trademark, and residents of 11 towns of Ukraine were deprived of a chance to watch the channel. TVi linked this with a pressure being imposed on the channel.

Journalists of the TVi channel said later that the cable operator Volia, without warning, had decided to move the channel starting this fall from the popular basic package of channels into the extended expensive package, which only one third of its subscribers use. The channel's staff said it believes that the pressure on TVi, which began at the start of the election campaign, is aimed at "destroying the last television channel that is not controlled by the authorities.