Transdniestria to show Moldova TV freely, but Moldova won't reciprocate

Chisinau's "NIT TV" channel has interviewed Moldovan President Voronin (shown) but never Transdniestrian President Igor Smirnov

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Multichannel Television, the largest privately owned Cable TV operator in Transdniestria (official name: Pridnestrovie), will rebroadcast the Moldovan NIT TV channel starting on Thursday, 1 November 2007.

NIT Director General Sergiu Batoc told Infotag the telecasting has become possible thanks to an agreement reached between the two companies. NIT will be providing its signal until Tiraspol, and the Transdniestrian television company will then be re-distributing the signal throughout the length of the unrecognized country.

NIT TV is a private channel which is pro-government and in favor of the regime of Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin. It is opposed to the independence of Transdniestria. NIT programs will be available all throughout the country without any content restrictions or editorial changes whatsoever.

According to a press release issued by Multichannel TV, Transdniestria residents will now be able to watch Moldovan TV as part of the cable package line-up which also includes BBC, TNT, and a number of other Western channels.

Station ID of NIT TV, Moldova, which will now be shown un-cut in PMR

Moldovan TV channels are not scrambled or jammed in any way in Transdniestria, but they can be hard to receive with a standard free-to-air TV antenna except for viewers who live close to the border with Moldova, said Valeriu Soltan, a member of the Moldovan Audio Visual Council, a media watchdog.

In contrast, all of Transdniestria - except part of Kamenka, in the very north of the republic - is covered with cable TV. Cable service costs less than $4/monthly and more than 90% of the country's 550,000 inhabitants have cable TV in their homes.

Moldovan "information war"

Multichannel confirmed on Friday that it covers all of Transdniestria's towns and districts apart from Kamenka, and that the pro-Moldovan NIT channel will be carried nationwide.

" - From November 1, the private NIT television channel of Moldova will be available on all frequencies of the Sheriff TV company of Transnistria," the Moldovan news agency Infotag stated.

NIT TV director general Sergiu Batog told Moldovan news agency Basapress that Multichannel's owner, the Tiraspol-based Sheriff corporation, has pledged to make no changes to NIT programs. There will be no edits and no censorship of any kind whatsoever, and all TV programs will be re-distributed live and in real-time "as is". In other words, Moldovan and Transdniestrian viewers will see the same content at the same time.

Batog described the agreement reached by the two sides as a step towards creating a single information area between the two banks of the Dniester River.

A so-called “information war” has been going on between Moldova and the Dniester region for more than 10 years, with no Moldovan cable TV operator including any Transdniestrian TV channels in its packages and vice a versa, Infotag reported.

Although Transdniestria is now taking the step of allowing pro-Moldovan pro-government channels to be shown in Transdniestria, Moldova will not reciprocate. Transdniestria has two TV channels which are exclusively Transdniestrian: One is the private TVS channel ("Television of Free Choice"), and the other is the state-owned TV PMR ("First Republican Channel). Neither of these can be seen in Moldova, and no cable TV services are allowed to re-broadcast them without prior permission from the Moldovan government. To date, no permits for broadcasting either of the two Transdniestrian TV channels have been issued.

Censorship against Transdniestria newspapers

TV is not the only area of mass media where Moldova's government discriminates and won't allow its citizens to find out what is going on in Transdniestria.

A previous information-exchange deal to allow newspapers from both sides of the river to be available in the neighboring territories was unilaterally broken by Moldova soon after it went into effect. The agreement, which was signed in May 2001, allowed for the unobstructed circulation of mass media and delivery of newspapers in Moldova and Transdniestria. Under the terms, Transdniestria's newspapers would be available in Moldova with no censorship and no restrictions on their importation or sale. Likewise, Moldovan newspapers would be available in Transdniestria under the same terms.

Less than four years later, in February 2005, Moldova's regime banned the importation and distribution of all Transdniestrian news media. Newspapers from east of the Dniester are currently not available in Moldova anymore, and only Transdniestria has diligently observed the terms of the agreement.

Newspapers from Moldova are still for sale in Tiraspol and other parts of Transdniestria, despite the fact that the opposite is not true and Transdniestrian news media is currently banned in Moldova. (With information from Basapress, Infotag)

See also:
» Pridnestrovie's newspapers banned in Moldova
» Press freedom 2007: Down in Moldova and Ukraine, up in Transdniester

On the web:
» Multichannel Television