The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine at the request of the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTCU) revoked the Euronews’ license for Ukrainian viewers.
The main reason for such NTCU’s resolution became a striking high price of TV content production and indebtedness to Euronews, as well as the lack of possibility to influence the program content policy.
Aleksandr Kharebin, NTCU’s Deputy Head, points out that the National Television Company’s debt amounts to 11 million euros, while the Government assigns just 600 thousand euros. According to him, there the negotiations conducted with Euronews on debt restructuring.
According to the comments of Zurab Alasaniya, NTCU’s Director General, the debt appeared due to the unfairly executed contract which was concluded in 2010 under the previous Government. It resulted in setting price for Ukraine of 5.5 million dollars for half-hour broadcasting.
We recall that this January the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine initiated the liquidation of Euronews’ Ukrainian version. And just in early March it became known that Inter Media Group celebrated a cooperation agreement with the European channel. At that, the National Council observed its readiness for granting Inter Media Group a new satellite license for Euronews.
