French audio-visual regulator Arcom has ordered Eutelsat to stop transmitting two Russian channels from its satellites—Eutelsat must cease transmissions of the channel within three days.
The affected channels, STS and 5 TV (also known as Channel 5), are linked to a commercial enterprise that has faced sanctions by the European Union following Russia’s siege on neighboring Ukraine several years ago.
“These channels are controlled by the Russian company, JSC National Media Group, whose financial resources have been frozen,” a spokesperson for Arcom said in its statement on March 21st. The sanctions mean the channels linked to JSC National Media Group are subject to “a ban on their distribution” by television operators and distributors that conduct business within EU member states.
The Arcom decision is the latest to involve Eutelsat and Russian channels. In 2022, Eutelsat said it would stop broadcasting a number of Russian networks—including RT (formerly Russia Today), Sputnik, Rossia 1 and NTV — following EU-imposed sanctions on Russian state-funded and commercial TV channels. The EU had earlier urged its member states to cancel the broadcast licences of Russian broadcasters over the country’s war in Ukraine.
National Media Group, Russia’s largest private media holding company, has been subject to European sanctions since December 2022.
“Eutelsat scrupulously respects Arcom’s directives, and this request will be implemented as soon as possible,” the group said in a statement. Eutelsat explained that National Media Group was not its direct customer, but that of an intermediary distributor. Eutelsat said that to its knowledge, there were no other channels targeted by Arcom at the present.
STS and 5 TV are broadcast through Eutelsat’s capacity on the Eutelsat 36C satellite, operated by Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC).
However, the influential Comité Diderot, while welcoming the Arcom decision, said there were more channels still to be investigated.
“In our view, priority should have been given to the Russian army’s three Zvezda channels and the Orthodox Church’s Spas channel,” Comité Diderot’s coordinator, André Lange, told journalists.
