Russian TV Station Dozhd Might Disappear Due to Poll about the Siege of Leningrad

One of the largest cable operators in Russia, Trikolor, announced about exclusion of the Dozhd television from its offers beginning on 10 February, according to Tvrain.ru. This measure was announced after the scandal caused by a poll about the Siege of Leningrad, conducted by Dozhd.

According to the channel’s representatives, the Board of Trikolor voted for exclusion of Dozhd unanimously. The decision says that the television was excluded because its editorial policy contradicted the principle governing the creation of service packages.

In its turn, the management of Dozhd offered all Russian cable operators free signal until the end of the year. According to the channel’s administration, the offer is connected to the latest events that involved the television’s exclusion from the packages of several operators. At the same time, the channel’s leadership said that they are not dropping the previously announced strategy for the channel’s development, meaning introduction of a monthly payment for every cable operator beginning in 2015.

Since 29 January, Dozhd has been excluded from the offers of some Russian cable operators. Some of them said that their decision was related to a poll about the Siege of Leningrad, which was conducted and then broadcast by Dozhd. Viewers were asked if it would have been preferable to surrender Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to German forced in the Second World War to save the lives of the people who died there and of the soldiers who defended the city. The question was asked on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad. For about three years the city had been surrounded by German forces and isolated from the rest of the world, and its people soon remained with no provisions or electricity. About one million city residents and thousands of Russian soldiers died of hunger, cold and diseases.

The current Kremlin regime, however, has been known for its intolerance towards questioning the actions of past authorities, especially during the Soviet era. The channel’s managements later dropped the poll and apologized for broadcasting it. The statement was, though, too late, as the poll caused debates and controversy among the civil society and the Members of Parliament, who took the channel to prosecution. The prosecution office, in its turn, found no legal violations in the conduct of the poll.

However, Yuri Pripachkin, the president of the Cable Television Association, recommended operators to exclude this television from their offers. His declaration was later criticized by the Union of Journalists and other professional organizations. The Kremlin’s representative for human rights Vladimir Lukin said that criminal proceedings should be initiated against the cable and satellite operators that excluded the channel.

Dozhd had previously been excluded from the offers of the following operators: Dom.ru, Akado, NTV-plus, Rostelecom and Bilayn TV.

Source of photo: RIA Novosti archive via Historia.ro