Satellite problems cause Russian TV outages

Four state-run Russian TV channels went black for around 117 million people at the end of last week, due to satellite problems, according to Russian news agency Ria Novost.

Citing a statement by the country’s Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, the agency reported Russia’s European territories and the Urals were effected on Thursday.

While broadcast of the country’s two most watched channels, Rossiya-1 and Channel One, were restored to 90% of viewers in the region within an hour, outages on the Culture Channel and Fifth Channel, as well as for regional broadcasts, persisted into the weekend.

The ministry said that 98% of the affected population would have full access restored within 10 days, though 2% could wait up to three months for antennas to be readjusted. Faulty orientation of the the Express-MD1 satellite was blamed for the issues, with reserve satellites due to be used to fix the problem.