All Ukrainian on-air broadcasters have lost their audience in Crimea in the past week, according Valentyn Koval, the general manager of M1 and M2 TV channels.
In a statement provided to Broadband TV News, he adds that new management of retransmission centres across Crimea switched off all Ukrainian TV channels and re-routed signals of Russian TV channels to transmitters instead.
“I should add that most Ukrainian channels used their own transmitters and antennas, so this re-routing was made without any agreements and we consider our property is stolen or “annexed””.
Koval also says that all Ukrainian channels have been replaced by Russian services on DVB-T2 multiplexes in Crimea.
There are also special packages on the Yamal-402 satellite named ZEONBUD (the operator of Ukraine’s DTT multiplexes) with channels that are now on air in Crimea.
M1 and M2 are part of StarLightMedia, a leading Ukrainian broadcasting group.