Espreso, Pryamyi, Channel 5 to apply to the NCTRB for digital license renewal

Illustration by Pryamyi TV

The TV channels Espreso, Pryamyi, and Channel 5 will submit applications to the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting for digital license renewal.

Espreso marketing director Mykola Tipusiak, Channel 5 director Volodymyr Mzhelskyi, and Pryamyi chief editor Victor Medvid, spoke to Detector Media about this.

Before renewing a license, the NCTRB holds a broadcaster inspection and bases the decision on granting or refusing license renewal on the results. However, Espreso, Pryamyi, and Channel 5 have not been speaking digitally since April 4, 2022, when the BRT Concern shut their digital broadcasting down. This happened despite the channels having a valid broadcasting license from the NCTRB and fulfilling all contractual obligations to the Concern.

Espreso's license is valid until August 30, 2025. The Pryamyi and Channel 5 licenses expire later.

On October 30, at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, deputy Mykola Knyazhytskyi asked the NCTRB member Maksym Onopriyenko whether the licenses of Espreso, Pryamyi, and Channel would be canceled, since the broadcast termination was not due to any fault of theirs, and what the channels should do in this situation.

Maksym Onopriyenko said that he did not know whether these channels would apply for license renewal: "We are studying the paperwork. Because we wrote both to the BRT Concern and the National Security Council. We are developing a procedural mechanism for these inspections."

Previously

On April 4, 2022, Espreso, Pryamyi, and Channel 5 announced that on April 4 in the morning the Broadcasting, Radiocommunications, and Television Concern (BRTC) had shut down the broadcasting of these TV channels in T2 digital network.

Digital television provider Zeonbud, which is currently subject to the governmental BRT Concern, is not aware of the reasons for Espreso, Pryamyi, and Channel 5 being shut down.

The National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting said they had not ruled to shut down the three TV channels and were not authorized to make such decisions.

On May 9, 2022, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine explained that the digital broadcasting of Espreso, Priamyi, and Channel 5 had been shut down in compliance with the National Security Council's decision on the joint telethon.

The adviser to the head of the President's Office Mykhailo Podolyak believes that the channels from the so-called Petro Poroshenko's pool (Channel 5, Priamyi, and "Espreso") were excluded from digital air because they were harmful due to the ex-president's "narcissism."

Channel 5 and Priamyy filed a lawsuit against the Broadcasting, Radiocommunications and Television Concern (BRTC) and the State Special Communications Service for being excluded from digital broadcasting.