2007年8月18日土曜日

Russia forces World Service off FM radio


Russia forces World Service off FM radio



· BBC partner station told to halt broadcasts
· Move linked to diplomat row with Britain


Luke Harding in Moscow
Saturday August 18, 2007
The Guardian


The fallout from the diplomatic row between Britain and Russia spread to the BBC yesterday when Russia announced it was closing down the World Service's main Russian-language broadcasts.

The BBC World Service said it had been told it could no longer broadcast on the FM frequency in Russia. All broadcasts ceased at 5pm local time yesterday. On Thursday the Russian licensing authorities ordered the BBC World Service's Russian partner, Bolshoye Radio, to drop the BBC from its programming or lose its licence.



Bolshoye Radio rebroadcasts the BBC Russian service to thousands of listeners across Moscow. It said it had no choice but to comply. It was now working on a new concept, it added.

Media commentators said there was little doubt that the move was the result of Kremlin anger at Britain following the recent diplomatic row that culminated last month in the tit-for-tat expulsion of four Russian and British diplomats.

Yesterday Sarah Gibson, head of the BBC's Russian service, said the decision was "highly irregular and extremely disappointing.

"The timing is clearly suspicious and the climate is fairly suspicious," she said. "I'm not sure this is a way you want to regulate. But I can't say that this is due to the deteriorating climate between Britain and Russia."

She added: "If we can't be available on an FM station to people in St Petersburg and Moscow it's a very serious blow."

BBC insiders said the World Service - which is funded by the British government - was being targeted. "We've been caught in the crossfire," one said.

The BBC has appealed to Russia's licensing regulator to reverse its decision. The BBC Russian service can still be heard via short- and medium-wave frequencies but the service is inferior and erratic.

Bolshoye Radio was the Russian service's last FM partner station in Russia. Last November another partner, Radio Leningrad, axed the BBC two days after it broadcast an interview with Alexander Litvinenko in which he said the Kremlin could have had a role in his poisoning.

A second station, Radio Arsenal, dropped the BBC on November 24 - a day after Litvinenko's death. It resumed broadcasts two weeks later but terminated them again in January this year. The BBC Russian service restarted FM broadcasts via Bolshoye Radio in May.

The Kremlin was last year accused of jamming broadcasts by foreign radio stations - a tactic of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It has also been accused of pressuring Russian stations to end rebroadcasting agreements with other foreign broadcasters, including the US-government funded Voice of America and Radio Liberty.

Russia's main liberal radio station, Ekho Moskvy - one of the last media outlets in Russia regularly critical of the Kremlin - has faced similar problems with its rebroadcasting arrangements.

Yesterday Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of global news, said: "We are extremely disappointed that listeners to Bolshoye Radio in Moscow will be unable to listen to our impartial and independent news and information programming in the high-quality audibility of FM. The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high-quality programming for the station.

"The BBC has similar broadcasting arrangements with partner stations around the world. Our services are available on FM in over 150 capital cities - some 75% of the global total."

Yesterday's decision appears to be the latest chapter in a long-running Kremlin campaign against British interests. Previous targets have included Britain's ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton - harassed and intimidated by a pro-Kremlin youth group - and the British Council.

Kremlin officials have also been involved in a campaign within the Russian media to blame the murder of Alexander Litvinenko on British government spies and Boris Berezovsky, the London-based former oligarch.

Yesterday Yevgeny Strelchik of Rosokhrankultura, the federal media regulator, said the shutdown had nothing to do with the Kremlin. He told the Guardian: "Why do you bother calling me now when this happens to the BBC? When the same thing happens to Russian media like Echo Moskvy you don't react. This process [of terminating rebroadcasting agreements] has been going on for at least two years. It's a question for radio partner stations, not for us." He then hung up.



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