Russia Pulls Voice of America Radio Off Air

[Bosonic]

Source: The Moscow Times

Russia has pulled Voice of America radio off the air by not renewing the U.S.-funded station's contract, state media reported, citing a senior official who called its broadcasts "spam."

The station, which began broadcasting in Russian in 1947 at the onset of the Cold War, has lost its right to use the 810 AM radio frequency since the expiration of its contract this month, state news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday, citing its general director Dmitry Kiselyov.

Kiselyov, a veteran journalist recently named head of the news agency that took over RIA Novosti, was one of the first Russian officials upon whom the European Union imposed visa and financial sanctions in the wake of the country's annexation of Crimea.

The RIA report said Kiselyov personally notified the U.S. federal agency that controls Voice of America, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, that the contract would not be renewed.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-pulls-voice-of-america-radio-off-air/497904.html

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. I say, turnabout is fair play. n/t

[davidpdx]

2. How democratic of them

I highly doubt you'll see RT News blocked in the US.

[jakeXT]

3. Nobody listens to obsolete broadcasting models, apparently

Voice of Russia ceased shortwave and mediumwave broadcasting effective 1 April 2014.[8] The service continues to be available worldwide via the internet, in selected regions on satellite, and in several cities on FM or digital radio.

Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of the new Russia Today International News Agency which manages Voice of Russia, said in March 2014 that "We will stop using obsolete radio broadcasting models, when the signal is transmitted without any control and when it is impossible to calculate who listens to it and where."[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Russia

[davidpdx]

4. Sure

Because we know most Russians can afford satellite television and computers.

According to Statistica only 64.06 million Russians (May 2013) have access to internet out of 143.5 million (the population stat came from Wikipedia) or 44.64%.

According to Statistica only 10.8 million Russians (2012) have access to satellite television or 7.5%. Even with that stat being two years old I doubt it would have jumped very much. Figure maybe 10%.

[jakeXT]

5. Internet is higher and growing fast, dish is around 20% and obviously higher in rural areas

Virtually all Russians (98.4%)have a television in their household
...
19.8% of TV owners have an individual satellite dish, while 3.0% say they have a shared dish.

...
Russia is well on its way toward reaching its goal of
providing Internet access to 93% of its population by
2018. Seven in 10 Russians (70.2%) report having
home Internet access in 2013;this is up from 63.4% in
2012 and nearly triple the 24% in 2008

http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/02/Russia-research-brief.pdf