Asian multichannel operators do not appear to be following Australia’s Foxtel or European platforms in dropping Russia’s state-backed news platform, Russia Today (RT), following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

RT is carried across Asia by Hong Kong satellite operator AsiaSat (AsiaSat-7), along with multiple feeds for Sony/BBC Earth channels for India, WarnerMedia’s Cartoon Network and Turkey’s TRT World, among others;  and Malaysia’s Measat (Measat 3a), which carries the country's Astro platform channels along with other programming services.   

At presstime, neither of the regional operators had confirmed any change in their arrangements with RT. 

Along with a bouquet of international news channels, RT has relatively wide distribution across Asia, including carriage deals in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Cambodia and others. 

Platforms we spoke to today said they were aware of concern from some of their customers about RT and that they were closely monitoring the situation.

Widely seen as a mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin’s government, RT said at the weekend that Foxtel had suspended its channel distribution in Australia “in view of concern about the situation in Ukraine”. 

Quoting RT’s deputy editor-in-chief, Anna Belkina, on Foxtel’s decision, RT said on Saturday that “every time a government or a certain organisation calls for RT to be taken off air or bans its broadcast it only demonstrates the fallacy of media freedoms in the nation it represents”.