The Ukrainian media group StarLightMedia plans to launch an unencrypted international satellite TV channel by March 16.
Quoting the company’s press service, Telekritika reports that the channel will carry content produced by its current proprietary channels ICTV, STB and New Channel.
It adds that on March 3 StarLightMedia applied to the National Council for a licence to operate the channel.
The channel is a response to a request from the Ukrainian president, who StarLightMedia and the three other leading media groups met late last month to discuss calls for a moratorium on the encryption of satellite TV channels that took place in January.
The four groups agreed to launch unencrypted satellite versions of their national TV channels and thereby make them available again to Ukrainian citizens by March 16.
1+1, one of the groups, began testing an unencrypted version of its international channel on SES’s Astra 4A satellite on March 1.
