Russian English-language satellite TV channel begins broadcasts

Russia’s new government-funded, English-language satellite TV channel began broadcasts yesterday, as Moscow seeks to polish its image abroad.

Boasting a staff of 344 journalists, Russia Today will be broadcast 24 hours a day in North America, Europe and Asia. The programme is also available for Russians through subscriptions to a premium satellite package.

Margarita Simonyan, who was a Kremlin correspondent for the state-run Rossiya TV channel before being tapped to head the project, said the channel aimed to tell world news from a Russian point of view.

“What you see sometimes does depend on where you stand, and we want to tell the world about Russia from Russia. We want to show what we see with our own eyes. We want to give the background. We want to explain things,” she said.

“People will have an opportunity to watch us, and then they will have a fair opportunity to draw their own conclusions,” she said. “And if after that, in a month or so or two or several weeks, they will still be saying we’re the voice of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, then I will be surprised.”