Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov has symbolically pressed a button at the International Space Station (ISS) and gave a signal to turn off analog broadcasting in 21 Russian regions.
In this way, nearly 40 million people have received a digital television signal. The ceremony was held at the Mission Control Center (MCC). It was attended by the director general of the Russian television and radio broadcasting network Andrei Romanchenko and the head of the Roskosmos' center for digital development Konstantin Shadrin.
Broadcasting of federal television channels within the framework of the last wave of blackouts will be stopped by more than 3 thousand out of 13 thousand analog transmitters operating on Russian air.
The creation of a digital television network was a key event of the federal target program “Development of Broadcasting in the Russian Federation for 2009-2018”. Over the years the program has been implemented, about 100 million televisions supporting the digital standard and about 20 million set-top boxes for old televisions have been sold in the country.
