30.05.2020, Riga.
Broadcasting in Russian will be stopped in Latvia on January 1, 2021, the Chairman of the National Council for Electronic Media (NEPLP) Ivars Āboliņš said on May 29 at a discussion on the development of electronic media.
According to the official, the LTV7 channel, the only Russian-speaking TV channel in Latvia, will completely switch to Latvian next year.
Āboliņš believes that the LTV7 audience is small, and this situation should improve after the channel switches to broadcasting in Latvian. The NEPLP chairman suggests that all the content in Russian should migrate to a special lsm.lv Internet platform.
The governments of the Baltic States seek to totally remove any content in Russian from media. The Sputnik outlet had to stop operating in January because of pressure from the law enforcement authorities.
In February, searches took place in the offices of the First Baltic Channel in Latvia and Estonia. As a result, a number of programs in Russian produced in the Baltic States were taken off the air. Currently, the First Baltic Channel broadcasts only Russian programs.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
