TVi Channel's rating falls by three times after disconnections, Director General Kniazhytsky says

The National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting is forcing cable operators to disconnect broadcasting of TVi Channel in the regions during the election period, Director General of TVi Channel Mykola Kniazhytsky has said.

"From July 20 [2012] about 60 cable television operators disconnected the TVi Channel… There is a lot of evidence that this is happening on the direct order of the national council or its Chairman Manzhosov [Volodymyr Manzhosov]," Kniazhytsky said at the sitting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information on Wednesday.

According to him, "it's evident that this was done in order to destroy our channel."

"As a result of these disconnections, the rating of our channel has fallen by almost three times…and it means that we can't fulfill our duties, including to the subjects of the political process. We have agreements with various political parties…In fact, representatives of the national council have put pressure on the cable operators, threatening them with the withdrawal of their licenses," the channel's director added.

The TVi director general said that disconnections of the channel are happening in the election period, which means that the channel is violating the conditions of the agreements signed during the election campaign with political parties.

As the correspondent of Interfax-Ukraine agency reported, at the same time, at the sitting of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information there was no quorum, since just four deputies from the opposition factions were present, while members of the Regions Party and from other factions didn't participate in the sitting.

Concluding the sitting, the committee's head, Yuriy Stets, proposed to ask lawyers to examine how the committee could influence on the situation with the inactivity of the council concerning the disconnection of TVi channel.