Licenses

The transition to digital bradcasting punishes critical media in Venezuela

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In February 2013, CONATEL initiated the transition to digital broadcastingIn February 2013, CONATEL initiated the transition to digital broadcasting in urban areas. Although the decree announcing the switch promoted pluralism in the diffusion of ideas and emphasized more efficient use of the broadcast spectrum, 8 of the 11 stations selected for digital transmission are state run. Only two private channels, Venevisión and Televen, were selected for digital transmission, and each focuses more on entertainment than on news programming. Globovisión, long the most vocal opposition-oriented station, was excluded from the transition.

Source: Freedom of the Press 2015 – Venezuela https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/venezuela#.VY0cvkv_9EQ 

Russia silences independent broadcaster

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Broadcasting licenses of the award-winning channel TV-2 in Tomsk were withdrawn by the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS) and the federal oversight body for telecommunications, as Freedom House reported in February 2015.

Its broadcasts were suspended for a month in spring 2014 due to technical difficulties of a local division of RTRS, the state monopoly that owns terrestrial air broadcasting facilities across the country; in November 2014, RTRS announced it would not renew TV-2’s contract after its expiration in December. Also, Roskomnadzor, the federal telecommunications agency, reversed its decision to renew its cable broadcasting license until 2025.

“The government’s haste and secrecy in silencing Tomsk’s only independent TV station shows that this broadcaster has become inconvenient to the state,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of the Freedom of the Press project at Freedom House. “TV-2 has become known in Tomsk, Russia, and abroad as a regional media outlet providing objective coverage of social, political and economic issues rarely covered by state-owned broadcasters. To lose such a champion is a serious blow to the dwindling freedom of speech in Russia.”

Russia is rated Not Free in Freedom in the World 2015, Not Free in Freedom of the Press 2014, Partly Free in Freedom on the Net 2014, and received a democracy score of 6.29 on a scale of 1-7, with 7 being the worst possible score, in Nations in Transit 2014. 

 

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