Only Crimean Tatar TV channel fails to win Broadcasting Council tender

As feared, ATR, the first and only Crimean Tatar TV channel has not received a frequency in the Broadcasting Council’s tender.  There was no outright winner at the meeting on Nov. 20 so a new tender will be needed.  Both ATR and Radio “Meidan” are at threat.

The company Atlant-CV had bid for the frequency in Simferopol which it has broadcast on since its inception in 2006, as well as a number of radio frequencies.

The other bidders for the TV frequency were the State-owned company Krym and Channel TVK.

Elzara Islyamova, General Director of TV ATR stressed that not only had the channel been broadcasting on the frequency in question since 2006, but its rating had also risen over the last year, and that correspondent offices had been opened in Istanbul, Kyiv and Moscow.

ATR, however received only 4 votes; Krym – 3 and TVK – one.  There will therefore need to be a new competition, and until then ATR will be able to continue broadcasting.

Islyamova called the Council’s decision political:

“We had all the legal grounds the channel to receive the frequency bid for. We are the only Crimean Tatar channel in our country and it provides for the information needs of the Crimean Tatars. The channel is ahead of the other Ukrainian channels in GfK and what grounds there could be for not finding us the winner we don’t know”.

Atlant-SV was also not granted the radio frequencies.

After the first meeting of the Broadcasting Council was suddenly postponed, Refat Chubarov, Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, also suggested that there were political motives involved. 

From a report at Telekritika