Euronews suggests new terms of cooperation, MTIN keeps silence in response
No one wants to try to predict when the TV-channel is back to the Minskers' flats. The regions have no problems with watching Euronews.
Euroradio has found out that the TV-channel Euronews suggested special terms of cooperation to the Minsk Television Informational Networks. The channel's distributor in the CIS countries Julia Silvestrava sent a corresponding letter to the MTIN's directive board right after the telephone negotiations several days ago. There has been no reply from Minsk so far.
Julia Silvestrava: "We talked to them last
week. However, I cannot tell you the details of our conversation. We hope to
work with the MTIN in Belarus again but I don't know what they are going to
answer and what will happen next".
Let us remind you, broadcasting of the independent news TV-channel Euronews by
the Minsk Television Informational Networks was terminated at 0.02 on January
1. The Minskers are now shown the channel "NTV+Cinema Plus" instead
of the Euronews.
Head of the MTIN's marketing department Maksim Dubovik stated that the reason for that had
been financial arguments with the right holders of the channel at the territory
of Belarus, in a conversation with Euroradio. The price for re-broadcasting had
sufficiently grown since the New Year.
They admit now in the MTIN that they have received the letter with the offers
for cooperation from Lyon. However, Maksim Dubovik does not say when they will
give a reply and what it will be. He also refuses to tell how interesting the
suggestions of the Euronews' distributor are to them.
Maksim Dubovik: "This is commercial information;
it's too difficult to say the contents of the letter in one phrase. We are
considering their offers in order to make some conclusions...this is a very
complicated question to answer on the spot".
Julia Silvestrava was surprised that the Belarusian company had not addressed
directly to the central office when she found out that the MTIN had bought the
rights for re-broadcasting from the Russian representative, in a conversation
with Euroradio.
Julia Silvestrava: "I did not know which
Russian representative they were talking about. We have an agent in Russia but
it turned out it wasn't this very partner, they talked about another one".
The MTIN refuse to give any comments on this. They also don't say whether it is
worth hoping that the Euronews will be back till the end of January.
Meanwhile, all the other regions of the country, big cities and small
settlements, have no problems with watching the Euronews. However, this is due
to the "Beltelecom".
"We made an agreement with
the representative who is claimed to be the official representative in the CIS
countries. The channel comes here via Russia", -explains
representative of "Beltelecom" Volha Vitkouskaya.
The company then "redistributes' the Euronews from Minsk to all the
regions. Volha Vitkouskaya says that they are the only company which renders
its services all over the country. However, she refused to provide more
detailed information about the contract between the "Beltelecom" and
the Russian distributor of the Euronews.
