TV channel 7/8 is going off the air, Slavi Trifonov announces
The channel's founder accuses the two big private national broadcasters of running a cartel on the advertising market. His claims have not been independently verified. 7/8 launched in 2019.
Symbolic image · Photo: ArildV / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
TV channel 7/8 is going off the air, its founder Slavi Trifonov announced in a post on his personal Facebook profile. He gave no date for the closure. The channel began broadcasting in November 2019.
Trifonov blames conditions on the TV advertising market. In his account, "the two big private national TV stations have organized a cartel" – buying up advertisers in advance and obliging them to advertise only with them, which he says breaches antitrust rules. Under such conditions "there cannot be free and independent televisions," Trifonov wrote, adding that his team had tried for seven years. The claims have not been independently verified, and no response from the two broadcasters was cited in the report.
Trifonov thanked the staff and viewers. "Life is a battle and we will meet again on the battlefield, because we are the bad guys!" he wrote. What will happen to the team and the programs is unclear.