Television channel TVi has received a warning from the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council. The decision to issue such a warning was supported by all members of the Council at a meeting on 28 September.

According to member of the Broadcasting Council, Oksana Holovatenko, the regulator had carried out a scheduled check of channels. It found that over the year TVi had not begun broadcasting in a number of Crimean cities, and in the village of Verkhnyi Yaseny in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, it had only carried out testing, and then stopped it. It stated that TVi had also not acted in line with its licensing requirements by showing films for 5 and not 13 hours.

Lawyer Yury Krainyak who was representing TVi responded that the current licence did not contain  supplements for those cities which determine the list of broadcasting channels. He pointed out that the Broadcasting Council had itself cancelled those supplements establishing TVi and Channel 5’s right to broadcast on the frequencies won in the tender of 27 January 2010.

He added that after that they had learned that the Broadcasting Council had gone ahead and re-registered those broadcasting licences. TVi had not asked for this.

And in the village of Verkhnyi Yaseny the channel was not broadcasting, he said, because it did not have the appropriate permit while the body which should provide this was refusing because they did not have the supplements cancelled by the Broadcasting Council.

The moves last year to remove frequencies from two of the only channels still providing coverage of opposition views led to statements of serious concern from Ukrainian media and human rights organizations, international NGOs and European structures.  See Stop Censorship Statement on the Court ruling over broadcasting frequencies  and the links below for more information.