First Caucasian Channel stopped broadcasting

First Caucasian TV channel, broadcasting from Tbilisi, yesterday was disconnected from French satellite, belonging to Eutelsat.

According to Zurab Dvalim the director general of the channel, from January 15th to 28th the First Caucasian was working in test regime, and was disconnected due to expiration of that term - BBC Russia.

The channel managers are conducting negotiations on terms of use with the French company, Dvali said.

He believes that the channel could be disconnected "not without Russia's help."

Dvali cannot rule out Moscow is exerting pressure on France to prevent it from extending the agreement.

The First Channel [broadcasting in Russian] started its work in Internet on January 4th, later it became available via satellite. Most part of information messages is devoted to Georgia, the rest - to news from Russia [in particular, North Caucasus] and the entire world.

The channel is based on the Public Broadcaster of Georgia. According to the idea of the Georgian side , the main audience must be national minorities in North Caucasus, the channel was available in all its regions.

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