FIRST CAUCASIAN CHANNEL STOPPED BROADCASTING
AZG DAILY
30-01-2010
Regional
Georgia Times
First Caucasian TV channel, broadcasting from Tbilisi, was disconnected
from French satellite, belonging to Eutelsat.
According to Zurab Dvalim the director general of the channel, from
January 15th to 28th the First Caucasian was working in test regime,
and was disconnected due to expiration of that term – BBC Russia.
The channel managers are conducting negotiations on terms of use with
the French company, Dvali said.
He believes that the channel could be disconnected "not without
Russia’s help."
Dvali cannot rule out Moscow is exerting pressure on France to prevent
it from extending the agreement.
The First Channel [broadcasting in Russian] started its work in
Internet on January 4th, later it became available via satellite. Most
part of information messages is devoted to Georgia, the rest – to
news from Russia [in particular, North Caucasus] and the entire world.
The channel is based on the Public Broadcaster of Georgia. According
to the idea of the Georgian side , the main audience must be national
minorities in North Caucasus, the channel was available in all its
regions.