The station RT DE is not allowed to go back on the air in Germany. The Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK) of the media authorities has now decided. RT is owned by media company Rossiya Sevodnya (Russia today). The foreign broadcaster is financed directly from the Russian state budget.
As early as mid-December, RT DE, the German-language offshoot of the network, surprisingly started a live program and referred to a Serbian broadcasting license. However, shortly before Christmas, the satellite operator Eutelsat stopped broadcasting the television program after a few days. Youtube also blocked the station and referred to community guidelines. Since then, media regulators and lawyers have been dealing with the RT case.
On December 17, the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (mabb), as the local media regulator, initiated media law proceedings against RT DE Productions GmbH. The higher-ranking ZAK is now responsible, it says, “since it is a nationwide radio program.”
With a decision of February 1, the ZAK is now demanding that RT DE not only discontinue its TV program via the satellite, but also prohibit distribution via live stream on the Internet and via the mobile and SmartTV app, because “the required authorization under media law is not available”, as the ZAK writes in a statement. RT DE is a licensed broadcasting program for which, according to the Interstate Media Treaty, “no license has been granted or applied for”. The organizers could not refer to any other legitimate permission under European law.
The case puts additional strain on German-Russian relations
It is to be expected that the new decision will also put a strain on German-Russian relations. Russia had already spoken of “consequences” after the satellite program was discontinued in December, and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan wrote of a “real media war” as early as September.
The Dispute came to a head again at the beginning of January. In an interview with the German Press Agency, Russia’s Ambassador Sergey Nechayev in Berlin indicated Russian reactions to the restrictions on RT DE. At the time, he made it clear that German correspondents in Russia could be affected. “I’m not an oracle from Delphi, but there are various possibilities. There are so many German journalists in Russia,” said Nechayev, according to the dpa. The chairman of the German Association of Journalists, Frank Überall, recognized this as an “undisguised threat”.
As expected, the RT DE case will further complicate the diplomatic situation surrounding questions about Ukraine and the “Nord Stream 2” gas pipeline project.