Georgian TV Channel Says Russian Company Elbowed It Off the Air

In an echo of the cat-and-mouse game of signal jamming in the Soviet Union, a Russian-language television station in Georgia is accusing a Russian company of blocking its broadcasts into Russia by buying out the spectrum on a French-operated television satellite.

The Georgian station, Georgian Public Broadcasting, had signed a contract with the satellite operator Eutelsat, based in Paris, to broadcast news in Russian to Russia and other former Soviet states, apparently trying to crack the Kremlin's near monopoly of television news. The Georgian channel, which is publicly financed, broadcast on a trial basis for 11 days in January and was to formally begin its broadcasts on Monday. But it is off the air for now, and the Georgians are accusing Eutelsat of caving to Russian pressure. At a news conference in Paris on Monday, Georgian television executives said that as late as Jan. 14 they had a binding offer from Eutelsat to broadcast the new channel for one year. But according to the Georgian executives, the French company backed out the next day, after announcing that it had received a more lucrative offer from Gazprom Media, an arm of Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, for the same spectrum the Georgians had contracted for.