Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday he had signed a decree to establish a commercial-free, public television broadcast service that will be launched on January 1st 2013, RIA Novosti reports.
Medvedev called for the creation of a public TV service in 2011.
“I would like to inform you that today I’ve signed a law to create public TV and it will go on air starting from January 1, 2013,” he said at the fourth extended meeting in the Open Government format.
He said that the public broadcaster will be financed in its early stages by a government loan.
“We will have to somehow launch the mechanism of financing the public TV. In the beginning, the state, apparently, will have to render some assistance in this situation via a loan scheme, but afterwards this loan should be replaced by an endowment fund… which will help this TV to stay afloat without resorting to state funding,” Medvedev said.
Russia’s public TV to be launched next year
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