Regional UA: PBC branches give up the analogue broadcasting

At its meeting on January 17, 2019, the National Council considered a motion by the PJSC “National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine” (UA: PBC), the City of Kyiv, regarding the cancellation of 21 licenses for regional broadcasting in the analogue standard and approved a corresponding decision.

This is the second stage of the process of the refusal of the UA: PBC to use the analogue standard of television broadcasting, and it concerns the local branches of the licensee, which distributes its programmes in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi Regions. At the previous meeting, the National Council already satisfied the statement of the Public Company regarding the reissue of the license in connection with the seizure of 259 analogue broadcast channels.

During the consideration of this issue, Member of the National Council Serhii Kostynskyi, proposed to leave analogue television broadcasting of UA: PBC in territories bordering on the Russian Federation, where the Joint Forces Operation is ongoing, as well as in several settlements in Kherson Region near occupied Crimea.

According to Dmytro Gruzynsky, Head of UA: PBC Network Development Department, regional branches that have analogue broadcasting licenses that do not adjoin the aggressor country have quality digital coverage and are also available for viewing on cable networks. In addition, he said that due to switching off analogue transmitters, it is possible to increase broadcasting in a multichannel network and provide analogue and digital broadcasting in territories bordering with the Russian Federation and in territories with the special broadcasting regime.