MOSCOW, January 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The Akado cable operator has cut off Dozhd television from its cable network as of January 30, 2014, Akado said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We had been cooperating with Dozhd TV channel since summer 2011, but recently, Dozhd television channel has seriously changed its broadcasting concept, which prompted us to call into question the expediency of continuing the Dozhd license to broadcast via our cable network," the cable operator quoted its President Viktor Koresh as saying.

During a talk show "The Dilettante", which was on the air on January 26, Dozhd television asked its audiences a provocative question: "Should Leningrad have been surrendered to save hundreds of thousands of lives?"

Earlier in the day, President of the Association of Russia's cable television Yuri Pripachkin said that the operators of cable television had been considering a possibility of cutting off Dozhd from the cable network following the provocative question Dozhd put to its audiences.

The problem was discussed at a round-table meeting of the Association of Cable television and at its congress. “The point is that cable television operators have been losing their audiences because of such provocative TV channels,” Pripachkin said. "The problem is much more serious. The question is whether cable television operators may cut off a TV channel if it has been inflicting losses,” Pripachkin said. "The law has no answer so far," Pripachkin added.