Excerpt from report by Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS
Moscow, 15 August: The Voice of Russia radio station is stepping up its presence in Georgia’s information space. “That has become possible thanks to increasing the number of short- and medium-wave transmitters,” the company has told ITAR-TASS.
Transmission capacity of seven transmitters located in Moscow, St Petersburg, Krasnodar and Samara is now involved in the task. In addition, Voice of Russia programmes in Russian are being relayed in Abkhazia on the 107.9 MHz FM frequency; now their amount has been increased from six to 10 hours a day.
The agency’s source said that on 9 August the Georgian National Security Council passed a resolution and the Georgian president passed a decree banning the broadcasts of all Russian TV and radio channels and blocking access to all ru-domain websites. “Voice of Russia broadcasts in Tbilisi on the FM-frequency were stopped from late on 8 August,” the radio station said. Previously Voice of Russia programmes were on air in the Georgian capital for six hours a day.
“However Voice of Russia has retained its presence in Georgia’s information space. At the moment Moscow broadcasts its programmes to the Georgian territory and nearby areas for 14 hours a day,” the company said. [Passage omitted]
The source added that “throughout the military conflict in South Ossetia, Voice of Russia was the only Russian media outlet to inform Georgian citizens of Russia’s position on all the issues in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in a timely fashion”.
(Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0911 gmt 15 Aug 08 via BBC Monitoring/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)
Voice of Russia opens South Ossetia mobile SMS channel
The Voice of Russia website carries the following announcement: “The Voice of Russia has opened a South Ossetia mobile SMS channel. If you track down the events now underway in this Caucasian flarepoint or you witnessed something yourself, please send us an SMS to +7(917)7677845. Your information will be published on our website and broadcast by our radio station. Also, you can subscribe to our brief SMS news on the latest developments in South Ossetia. For details please visit our web site at www.ruvr.ru .”(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)