Translated material
Now the fourth
NTV may remain without a license
The meeting of the Federal Competition Commission (FCC) scheduled for today could end in a major scandal. One of the items on the agenda will be the issue of extending the license for the right to broadcast on the fourth meter channel, which now belongs to the NTV television company. Press Minister Mikhail Lesin did not rule out yesterday that the license may not be renewed, and the “fourth button” will be put up for competition.The NTV license expires at the beginning of June this year. At the end of April, the management of the television company submitted to the Ministry of Press the documents necessary to renew the license.
The official reason for a legal refusal of a request for an extension may be the presence of two violations on the part of the television company during the year. The head of the NTV press service, Oleg Sapozhnikov, explained to the Vremya Novostey newspaper that the television company currently has only one official warning from the Ministry of Press, issued on April 22 of this year for a lack of children's programs in its broadcast network. The same warning was received on the same day by the television companies ORT, STS, TV Center, TV Stolitsa and VGTRK. “There are no legal grounds for the issue of a broadcasting license not to be extended to us,” Mr. Sapozhnikov emphasized.
However, the television company has another warning, issued to Kiselev’s NTV for unauthorized changes in the broadcast schedule (in April 2001, protesting against the change in the management of the television company, supporters of Yevgeny Kiselev stopped broadcasting any programs except news releases). In fact, it would not be very logical for Jordan’s NTV to remember the sins of Kiselevsky’s NTV. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the rumor about the non-renewal of the license is due to the fact that the process of selling the NTV television company has reached a dead end. Refusal to renew the license and the announcement of a new competition could, albeit clumsily, solve the problem. However, there is still no complete certainty about the fate of NTV. The press office of the Ministry of Press told the Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent that everything depends on the decision of the FKK.
“The NTV broadcast license may not be renewed, but for my part I cannot say what could be the basis for this,” a member of the FCC told a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent.