And that’s how easy it is to pull the switch A TV news station in Perm mysteriously goes off the air
On May 12, an unknown man posing as the executive director of the Perm-based television channel Ural-Inform TV presented forged documents to the local branch of Rostelecom, which houses the equipment that broadcasts the network over the airwaves. After gaining access to this hardware, Ural-Inform TV suddenly went off the air. For the past week, the channel’s actual staff and executives have been unable get inside Rostelecom’s office to turn the broadcast back on.
Ural-Inform TV says it’s filed formal complaints with the police, the district attorney, the Investigative Committee, and Federal Security Service, and Russia’s Ministry of Communications, demanding the restoration of its television broadcast. Nothing has worked, so far. Having exhausted their legal options, some journalists at Ural-Inform TV have even appeared in news segments wearing nooses around their necks. (The channel is still accessible on the Internet and over cable television connections.)
On the TV network’s website, a large red banner now reads cryptically, “The governor didn’t turn off our television station. Believe us.”
Ural-Inform TV‘s chief editor, Alina Lvova, says the network’s strange situation is both shocking and dangerous. “It turns out,” she says, ”that anybody can ‘pull the switch’ and take from the people of Perm their television channels, radio stations, or Internet and phone connections! This whole situation is especially crazy, when you consider that Rostelecom provides services to the public authorities, to hospitals, and to emergency services.”
Immediately after being taken off the airwaves, Ural-Inform TV sent reporters to Rostelecom’s office, but a security guard refused to let them into the building. The night guard, stumbling and slurring his words, was visibly drunk. (To behold this spectacle, skip to 0:58 in the video below.)
Who took Ural-Inform TV off the air? [In Russian.]
Ural-Inform TV
On May 18, Ural-Inform TV staged a demonstration titled “A Farewell to Perm’s Free Press,” inviting the station’s viewers to assemble in support.
Ural-Inform TV is part of “Ural-Inform,” the largest media holding company in the Urals. The company includes another three media outlets: the radio station Komsomolskaya Pravda-Perm, the newspaper Vremechko, and the news website RBC-Perm. In June 1995, Ural-Inform TV aired its first programming.