Kazakh television operator TVCOM says it has stopped broadcasting several stations launched by Russian state-run Channel One in a move to reduce the share of foreign news channels on the local market, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reported on January 4.
TVCOM said the move was also due to the fact that its subscribers are “more media literate, they get news from social networks.”
The Central Asian country has taken several moves to rein in Russian media. In November last year, it blocked the Sputnik24 Internet portal that broadcast Russian TV channels. In August, the Russian website “Tsargrad” was blocked for what the government called “signs of extremism.”
