The Chairman of the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine informed about the request of TV channels “Inter” and “1+1” to defer the analog terrestrial TV broadcasting cut-off to a later date, thus extending the so long-running transition to the “digital”.
The TV holdings “1+1 media” and “Inter Media Group” appealed to the government to postpone the analog TV cut-off in Ukraine until 2019. This information was announced by the Chairman of the National Council Iurii Artemenko in his interview to the LІGA.net .
“The analog cut-off point is very debating indeed. And this is due to various reasons of different TV groups and actors that have impact on shifting deadlines for transiting to the digital TV. Just the other day, we received a letter from the Cabinet of Ministers stating that the “1+1 Media” and the “Inter” Group of Channels would like to delay the analog shutdown until 2019”, as Mr. Artemenko informs.
According to the Chairman of the National Council, the most probable version of such a request is the media groups’ fear to lose their audience and its age as a result of transiting to the digital.
“So, the TV in the digital format will be watched mostly by young people, while the older audience is the electorate”, as Mr. Artemenko clarifies.
Let us remark that “1+1” and “Inter” have the widest analog TV signal coverage in Ukraine, just yielding to the channel UA: Pershyi. These are the very channels that got the analog frequencies from UT-1, UT-2 and UT-3.
Let us recall that the analog TV cut-off in Ukraine and the final transition to the digital standards are scheduled for 30 June 2017. The released analog frequencies will be used for the needs of the fourth-generation communications (4G).
