Azerbaijan, Baku / Тrend corr A. Gasymova / The Russian BBC service has been terminated amid speculation as to the reasons for the suspension of BBC broadcasting via Big Radio frequencies in Moscow.
On 18 August, two days before the suspension of the broadcasting, the new owners of Moscow's Big Radio station informed BBC World Service of the BBC that programs in Russian would never be aired on the radio station.
The representatives of Finam Holding, which purchased the Big Radio in July of this year, said that BBC programs must be removed from the air by the request of the Commission on Licensing and Control over TV and Radio, according to the site of the radio station.
"When we were issued a license, it was said that 60% of the programs must be made by the Big Radio station itself, and 40% by its partners [in this case the BBC], and now they say that 100% of the programs must be prepared by Big Radio," the head of Russian BBC Service, Sara Gibson, said from London on 21 August.
Trend failed to discover who owns Finam although according to the former director-general of the Big Radio, it is owned by a private person. Finam said that the reason for the suspension of the broadcasting was public demand.
"Any media financed by the Government - Russian, British, German, or US - is popularization, a representative of Finam said to journalists on 18 August.
BBC is financed by licensed payments of all television owners. It is not a State corporation. BBC (both radio, TV and internet portals) is a public broadcaster, intended to meet the interest of all those who pay for the service. "FM-frequency in Moscow was very important for us, as many radio listeners listened to the radio only for BBC news," Gibson noted.
BBC sent a letter to the Federal Service which supervising the area of mass media, communications and the protection of cultural heritage requesting to review the request of licensing bodies to remove BBC programs from the Big Radio.
It is the third time the broadcasting of BBC has been suspended in Russia. On 24 November 2006 Moscow's Radio Arsenal station suspended the broadcasting of BBC. At the beginning of 2007 Radio Leningrad in St. Petersburg also suspended the BBC service, stating that it was due to orders from the local licensing power.