The watchdog said RT’s parent body ANO TV Novosti was not “fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast licence”.
RT’s coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been under investigation by Ofcom, and the channel had already disappeared from UK screens.
RT, formerly named Russia Today, called Ofcom “a tool of the government”.
The channel became unavailable on all UK broadcast platforms earlier this month as a result of a ban imposed by the European Union.
Although the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc applied sanctions to satellite companies in Luxembourg and France, which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview.RT has also been blocked on YouTube but its website is still available in the UK.
UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who has described the channel as “Putin’s polluting propaganda machine”, said at the time she hoped it would not return to UK screens.
RT is a state broadcaster. It is funded by and principally – its critics would argue – serves the Russian state. This is different to a public broadcaster, which is funded by and serves the public.
TV Novosti, the institution that controls RT, is funded by the Kremlin. Under Ofcom rules, TV channels can be owned by foreign states, but they must not be controlled by political bodies. This is what did for CGTN, the Chinese network. Ofcom believes the clear absence of due accuracy and due impartiality on RT, and its ultimate control by a political body, violates our regulatory code.
Should liberal democracies ban state propaganda? Such moves may be ineffective: RT is still available online. They may be counter-productive: Ofcom accepts retaliation against the BBC is possible. And if the West is fighting a war for liberal democracy, free speech – while not unconditional – cannot be jettisoned lightly.
Against all that must be weighed the harm of allowing lies to proliferate, and the importance of signalling control over our own public domain.
Ofcom has done its job. But what do the rest of us want that job to be?
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