Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko faction in the St. Petersburg’s parliament, proposed to the largest cable operator in the city to include television channel Dozhd (Rain) into the basic package of TV channels offered to braod public.

Grigory Yavlinsky expressed his certainty that St.Petersburg viewers would be interested in receiving honest news and discussion programmes, as well as live broadcasts by the channel, such as had been done by Dozhd from winter and spring mass-scale rallies in Moscow and on the flooding in South Russia.

YABLOKO leader also added that audience would be interested in the views of the leading journalists of the Dozhd channel, including Leonid Parfyonov, Pavel Lobkov, Mikhail Kozyrev, Mikhail Fishman, Mikhail Zygar and Ksenia Sobchak.

Grigory Yavlinsky noted that he was calling to include the channel into the basic package of generally available programmes, along with the First Channel and other state channels.

It should be noted that St.Petersburg TKT cable network enjoys over 1.1 million households subscribers, i.e. about 3.5 million viewers. The company was founded on the basis of a state company and has been servicing the city television network.

Rostelecom has been holding the controlling block in the TKT cable networks since 2011.