Chirchik-TV went off air on November 3.

Studio Director Viktor Sapiro: First and foremost, we lack the money to pay for the license. There is another problem as well. RTR channel and Chirchik-TV do not have an accord on rebroadcasting. It means that we are violating the copyright. For the same reason, by the way: we do not have the money. TV is an expensive service, you know, and nobody wants to provide it for free.

Why is that? The matter of payment for the license used to be tackled step by step once. I mean that it was possible once to make the payment in installments. In 2004, however, we were told to come up with the whole sum at once. The matter concerns about 2 million sums ($2,000). We cannot afford it. We live in a small town. We have a small studio and therefore a meager revenue. We hoped to improve our economic standing by offering air time to political parties and their candidates in the period of the election, but this was a vain hope as we know now. We have been off air since November 3. I'm not going to make forecasts but I convinced that all endless problems of the media like Chirchik-TV are ascribed to the fact that the state does not make any distinctions when setting tariffs for the media. I'm talking about capacities of the media. After all, there are district, municipal, and regional studios. It should be taken into account or others may find themselves in the situation we are in.