BOGOTA (Sputnik) — The decision of Argentina’s media authority to suspend free broadcasts of RT news channel is political, a Colombian analyst and broadcaster told Sputnik on Saturday.
Argentina’s State Radio and Television Society (RTA SE) plans to exclude the international channel from free transmission starting in August but will keep it available in paid TV packages.
"It is more of a political message than a real [measure]," Francisco Bernate, professor at Del Rosario University in Bogota and analyst with Columbia’s Caracol Radio, said.
Prof. Bernate ruled out that the broadcasting authority’s decision was a sign that Argentina’s recently-elected President Mauricio Macri wanted to take on Russia politically or economically.
In an official notification posted by RT Spanish, RTA SE's legal manager Maria Eugenia Martinez said that the suspension did not preclude the conclusion of future collaboration deals.
RT Television’s Spanish-language channel was launched in Argentina as part of the Latin American country’s national broadcast in 2014.
