Will national cable providers drop RT?

[upstate29651]

RT (Russia Today) is O&O by the Russian Gov't as not only a mouthpiece of the politburo, but as a way to report Russian & international news as seen through the eyes of the Kremlin. With all the unrest in the Ukraine & pending sanctions coming against Russia, will we see a move by cable companies to drop them from their lineups?

 

[Gregg.]

Well, maybe someday but not yet. I imagine RT is free to cable companies. In some cases, RT apparently pays for its place on the dial. I have a friend who has the bare basic package from Time Warner. He gets the broadcast channels, the shopping channels, the public access channels and a few others like C-Span. And he gets RT. So I suppose an arm of the Russian Government is paying Time Warner for the channel space. TW just picked up Al Jazeera America, which is owned by the family that runs Qatar. And they also air CCTV News, a service of the Chinese Government, similar to RT.

For a while, an arm of the Russian Government was paying an ethnic broadcaster with numerous AM stations to air The Voice of Russia (similar to RT, an English language news and informations service) on stations in NYC and Washington 24/7. A few months ago, the lease arrangement stopped in NY (1430 is now airing Spanish Religion). I don't know if it was discontinued in DC. I don't know why it was ended.

 

[Avid Listener]

There are two good, though slightly contradictory, reasons to carry RT. One is out of fairness, so all sides can be heard. The other is that it's always good to know what the enemy is up to.

 

[rnigma1]

True. I remember when C-SPAN used to air the Soviet evening news program "Vremya" with English translation.

 

[sandiegoinexile]

.....I imagine RT is free to cable companies. In some cases, RT apparently pays for its place on the dial.....

Comcast has it on Channel 103 in my area. The on-screen display and the program guide both list it as "LEASE". While Comcast rarely has its act together in updating details, I suspect that RT is paying for the channel space, much like the shopping channels do. It's been listed as LEASE ever since it debuted a couple years ago.

 

[umfan]

RT represents far less of an 'enemy' than Al-Jazzera does and AJ and AJ America are carried on many systems.

 

[Unregistered]

RT represents far less of an 'enemy' than Al-Jazzera does and AJ and AJ America are carried on many systems.

We're at war with Qatar? Who knew?

Try watching AJ America sometime. What you'll see may surprise you. There's actual substance there, unlike the hot air that fills the US-based cable "news" networks all day.

As for RT, it disappeared quietly from many Time Warner systems over the last few months.