Toronto-Sept 4, 2018 Ontario-based Ethnic Channels Group Limited (ECG), which represents at least two TV channels controlled by Putin’s regime, is competing for mandatory carriage of its proposed multilingual television service on basic TV packages in Canada when the current licence for OMNI TV is up for renewal. If ECG is successful in its bid with the CRTC, the company will receive millions of dollars annually from Canadian television subscriptions and Canadians will have a national TV channel managed by a company that generates profit from co-operating with TV channels bankrolled by the Russian government.







“The Canadian company that distributes RT (previously known as Russia Today) also broadcasts a number of Kremlin-owned Russian language ‘news’ channels in Canada that whip up xenophobic, anti-LGBT and anti-Western sentiments in the Russian-speaking community,” wrote Marcus Kolga, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist and a Canadian expert on Russia. “Russia’s top news personality and close Putin ally, Dmitry Kiselyov, told viewers of his show on RTR Planeta in Canada that ‘gays who die in car accidents should have their hearts cut from their bodies and incinerated.’”







The CRTC is scheduled to hold a public hearing on October 15, 2018, to choose an operator of a multilingual, multi-ethnic channel with mandatory distribution across Canada. ECG is competing against seven other contestants, including Canadian television giants Rogers Media, Bell Media and Telelatino Network. ECG’s application proposes a $0.23 monthly fee per subscriber, which will result in more than $25 million in annual revenue for the company, given the approximately 11 million TV subscribers in Canada. If selected by the CRTC, ECG pledges to create Voices TV, which it claims, will be an “innovative multilingual television station” that will “emphasize inclusiveness, tolerance and awareness, granting a voice to all people.”







Several Canadian media industry professionals voiced concern and skepticism about ECG’s ability to deliver on its CRTC application promises.







“ECG promises that Voices TV will broadcast in 10 to 25 languages simultaneously,” said a Toronto-based media professional with experience launching apps for international media outlets and a former producer for major international news networks. “Tech giants like Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook have not yet come up with technology enabling multi-language, simultaneous broadcasts, but ECG, which operates a YouTube channel with about 150 subscribers and few hundred views, claims to have developed a revolutionary technology! It is extremely hard to believe.”







“The tactics of Russian and Soviet propagandists of financially supporting media outlets abroad, and from time to time using them to distribute the Kremlin’s propagandistic stories, is well known,” said a Russian independent TV and documentary producer on the condition of anonymity when asked about RT channel.







ECG’s Canadian portfolio includes Kremlin-controlled RT news channel (previously known as Russia Today), the international service of Russian state-owned broadcaster RTR Planeta, as well as several other Russian television channels, including those critical of the Kremlin (Dozhd TV). ECG also operates multiple television channels in Canada in many other ethnic languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu.







Who created this news release?







We are a group of independent journalists and media professionals who are worried about the future of Canadian media. Because we are small and do not have funds for lawyers, we decided to offer our colleagues at established media outlets a ‘start up’ package on topics affecting Canada’s media landscape.











Research and contacts:







Ethnic Channels Group Ltd.:











Potential spokespeople:







416 736 7577











Gregory Antimony (COO)







Hari Srinivas (President)











Voices TV:







416 736 7577











Maxim Kravchinsky (Senior Producer)















Information about methods of distributing disinformation and propaganda:







BuzzFeed News’ “This Is How Russian Propaganda Actually Works In The 21st Century” article:



















Marcus Kolga’s articles about growing threat of Russian disinformation in Canada:



















Some reading about RT in Canada:























Possible experts/people to interview:







James Bezan, MP Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman (Manitoba):





(Mr. Bezan sponsored a petition to the government of Canada about collaborators with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1636





Constituency: 204 785 6151



Parliament Hill Office: 613 992 2032











Marcus Kolga, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist and a Canadian expert on Russia



416 833 5553







Igor Malakhov, Toronto-based Russian TV producer & documentary film maker



416 273 6557







Alla Kadysh, Toronto-based Russian journalist and editor





416 558 9855 akadysh@radioplus.ca





Luba Cherny, vice-president of National Ethnic Press Council of Canada, publisher of Canadian Courier, a Russian newspaper in Toronto





416 727 53 00 courier@rogers.com





CRTC:









Media Relations:



819 997 9403





