Revokes RT’s license

UK regulator Ofcom revokes RT’s license to broadcast

Kremlin-backed channel officially gets the boot from Britain.

BY CAMILLE GIJS

U.K. communications regulator Ofcom Friday revoked Kremlin-backed channel RT's license to broadcast, with immediate effect.

The watchdog said it did not consider RT's licensee, ANO TV Novosti, "fit and proper" to hold a British license.

In a 12-page decision, the regulator argued that ANO TV Novosti could not be considered as a responsible broadcaster given the "pressures to which all media providers in Russia are currently subject by the Russian state and ANO TV Novosti's particular relationship with the Russian Federation."

Given "new laws in Russia which effectively criminalise any independent journalism that departs from the Russian state," it appears impossible for RT to comply with "due impartiality rules" of broadcasting, the regulator added in a press release.

According to Rasmus Klein Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, RT's online reach is extremely limited in the U.K.

Ofcom's decision comes after RT was officially banned in the EU on March 2, in a move designed to crack down on Russian disinformation.