Russia-backed news channel RT disappears from Washington, DC-area TVs - but people disagree on why

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A Russia Today (RT) television broadcast van is seen parked in front of St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin next to Red Square in Moscow on March 16, 2018. The Russian-backed TV channel RT disappeared from broadcasts around Washington. The network vanished from cable channels on April 1, 2018, when the station that ran RT permanently closed. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:33am, 3 Apr 2018Updated: 2:23am, 3 Apr 2018

For years, the state-funded Russian TV channel RT had broadcast its slickly produced English-language news programmes over the airwaves in the Washington area.

But in early February, the network was taken off the air by a northern Virginia TV station. RT had remained on area cable channels until midnight on Sunday when the station permanently closed.

RT blames the loss of the broadcasts on the network having to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department in November – something that many media outlets with substantial backing from a foreign government have been required to do.

“Although we are not at liberty to disclose the details, we know that this decision was linked to RT’s forced registration as a ‘foreign agent’ in the US,” Anna Belkina, RT’s deputy editor-in-chief, said in an email last week.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state-funded RT television network (right) is seen with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an exhibition marking RT's 10th anniversary in Moscow, Russia, on December 10, 2015. Photo: AP

But the television station and the owner of the frequency on which RT was broadcast cite business decisions, not the US government.