Russian Federation

[RU] Decree on Must-Carry Channels Amended Again

IRIS 2013-6:1/31

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

On 20 April 2013 the Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree effectively changing the composition of the country’s first DTT multiplex. (see IRIS 2011-7/41, IRIS 2009-10/25 and IRIS plus 2013-1).

This multiplex will now no longer carry a regional channel and will be entirely federal, with the 10th slot being allocated to the TV company “TV Tsentr” (TV Center).

TV Center is an open stock company with over 99 percent of the stock in the hands of the City Government of Moscow (which is legally not a municipality, but rather a subject of the Russian Federation, or a province), the chair of the board of the company is the Mayor. In December 2012 the company won a slot on the second multiplex; its fate is now unclear.

According to an interview in Rossiyskaya gazeta daily with Yulia Bystritskaya, the director-general of the company, this change in the composition of the first multiplex comes as a result of a relevant petition from the City Government to the President.

As to a regional TV channel that was originally to be created as part of the first multiplex by the State-run communications company Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS), it is to be replaced now by regional multiplexes in the provinces. The main State broadcaster VGTRK was tasked by the decree to establish regional channels on the basis of its provincial bureaux with the possible input of bona fide regional companies. RTRS will provide dissemination of the signal of the regional multiplexes. By the same decree the President also tasked the Government with the licensing of such regional multiplexes as well as with other “necessary measures.”