Paul Goble
Staunton,
February 12 – When Moscow announced plans to shift from analogue to digital
television broadcasting, it was immediately obvious that this would hit regional
TV stations harder than central ones given that the former lag far behind the
latter in making this transition (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/12/shift-from-analogue-to-digital-tv-will.html).
But now that the change has moved
beyond the experimental phase and even sparked protests (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/flashmob-protests-hit-seven-regions.html),
the reaction of officials suggests that they may view the destruction of
regional broadcasters as a kind of collateral benefit.
That is because “the solution” these
officials have proposed is one beyond the means of almost all of the regional
stations. Many may lose their audiences and be forced to close, thus
centralizing broadcasting still further and meaning that Russians will get more
news about Moscow than about their own regions, let alone neighboring ones.
During a visit to Tula this week,
Aleksey Volin, the deputy minister for digital development noted that most regional
broadcasters produce only an hour and a half to five hours of original
programming a day, far less than the 24
hours a day he says they need to produce to gain access to the digital
package Moscow is assembling (tass.ru/ekonomika/6101027).
If regional broadcasters
want to become part of the third block of the digital multiplex, Volin said, “your
must broadcast original programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” a
requirement vastly greater than they can possibly meeting. He added that “regional TV channels aren’t
ready on the technical side either.”
Such rationing by price is a
much-favored way many governments adopt to achieve their ends: They can claim
that they aren’t moving against this or that group; but the price structure
they set up will have that outcome – and quite likely be exactly the one they
had in mind, all their protests to the contrary.
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