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Hot Media Sector News
Media Representatives among Novoye Vremya’s 100 Most Influential People in Ukraine
August 15 – Novoye Vremya (NV) magazine published its 13th annual rating of the 100 most influential people in Ukraine. The list was compiled by a panel of 74 experts and includes a substantial increase of 35 people who are new to the list. In previous years, the list contained on average between five and 10 new names.
The media representatives among the top 100 in 2019 are:
- Olexandr Tkachenko (#18), director general of 1+1 media group and member of parliament for the Servant of the People party;
- Yulia Mostova (#60), editor-in-chief, Mirror Weekly newspaper;
- Volodymyr Borodyanskyy (#72), former director of StarLightMedia holding, ex-director general of STB TV channel, and current advisor to the president on humanitarian issues;
- Dmytro Gordon (#89), founder of the Gordon online media outlet and editor-in-chief of Gordon’s Boulevard tabloid newspaper; and
- Vitaliy Portnikov (#98), journalist and TV anchor.
More on Detector Media in Ukrainian and on the website of Novoye Vriemya in Ukrainian.
UA:PBC Head Reports on Public Broadcaster’s Progress in 2019
August 14 – Zurab Alasania, the head of Ukraine’s public service broadcaster UA:PBC, presented UA:PBC’s semi-annual 2019 activity report to the UA:PBC Supervisory Board. Alasania reported on the progress in implementing the UA:PBC roadmap, a strategy created as a result of the external audit of UA:PBC conducted by the Ernst & Young auditing company in 2018.
Alasania reported that between January and June 2019:
- all regional branch websites have been launched;
- a new accounting policy was developed;
- sound effects packs for Ukrainian radio (part of UA:PBC) were created;
- a system for tracking equipment, production facilities and personnel was developed;
- a function-based organizational structure was established so that departments are formed based on their activities (e.g. TV, radio, digital) rather than the sectors they are working on (socio-political programs, educational, cultural etc.);
- policies and procedures for applying for grant programs were developed;
- the land tax for UA:PBC was optimized, resulting in annual savings of 12,500,000 million hryvnia ($480,770);
- a system of internal controls for financial operations and production was implemented; and
- an electronic document management system was introduced.
Alasania reported that the UA:PBC team has improved the public broadcaster’s overall content production, for example by expanding information programming and increasing the duration of the “Topic of the Day” program from 30 to 52 minutes. The regional affiliates produced 276 “Electoral District: Interview” programs prior to the parliamentary elections, featuring 853 single-mandate candidates throughout Ukraine. The “Countdown” political talk show broadcast during the presidential and parliamentary elections attracted an audience of 12,000,000. Media monitoring experts called the “Countdown” the most balanced and neutral of all the pre-election talk shows on Ukraine’s national TV channels. The “Countdown” show and, in-part, the roadmap implementation, were supported by USAID’s Media Program in Ukraine, implemented by Internews. Internews supported the implementation of electronic document management system.
More on Detector Media in Ukrainian and on the website of UA:PBC in Ukrainian.
Advisor to President Supports Using Radio Frequency Rental Fees to Fund UA:PBC
August 13 – In an interview with Detector Media, newly elected Servant of the People party MP and advisor to the President of Ukraine Mykyta Poturayev supported using radio frequency rental fees to partially fund UA:PBC, Ukraine’s public service broadcaster.
Mobile communication operators and broadcasters currently pay their radio frequency rental fees to the state budget.
“I think it is a reasonable proposal to allocate a certain percentage from a specific tax to the public broadcasting company, in this case we are talking about a particular fee. I don’t see a risk or anything bad in this idea. It will generate more stability. So, I think we will consider this issue in the near future, which solution will be optimal for UA: PBC,” Poturayev said.
Poturayev believes that good television projects can increase UA:PBC’s ratings, and that high ratings would aid in the information battle against the pro-Kremlin Victor Medvedchuk-controlled channels. Earlier, in his interviews with different online media, Poturayev said that the public broadcasting company is much needed in Ukraine and should be properly funded to ensure that it is fully operational, but that UA:PBC should fight for its audience, because TV ratings are important.
Note: In the 2019 state budget, UA:PBC received 1 billion hryvnia (around US $38,500,000), which is approximately 57% of the amount stipulated by law. The law says UA:PBC should receive at least 0.2% of total yearly budget expenditures, which amounts to around 1.818 billion hryvnia (around US $69,900,000). The average cost of public service broadcasting in the European Union countries is 66.9m Euros (US $74,123,796). The Cabinet of Ministers decided to reduce the mandated budget by almost half over the course of the first two years of UA:PBC’s existence, which caused a crisis of underfunding. The justification provided was that UA:PBC was underperforming in terms of ratings, however there were also reasons to believe that UA:PBC was a victim of sabotage by political elements that did not wish to see it succeed as an impartial national broadcaster.
In response to UA:PBC underfunding, Council of Europe experts developed several options for the public broadcaster’s stable future financing, including the use of radio frequency fees. These were presented earlier in April this year to the Parliamentary Committee for Freedom of Speech and Information Policy.
More on Detector Media in Ukrainian.
UA:PBC Launches Guidelines for Gender and Conflict-Sensitive Reporting
August 13 - UA:PBC launched its guidelines for gender and conflict-sensitive reporting, which it produced in collaboration with UN Women with funding from the Swedish Government. In the guidelines, UA:PBC commits to providing a representative and fair portrayal of women and girls in journalistic products, supporting gender mainstreaming, and offering gender sensitive journalism training opportunities to its employees. The guidelines are available online in Ukrainian and English.
“Last year, we started introducing gender sensitive vocabulary in our reporting for the first time,” Maria Frey, UA:PBC’s general producer for regional broadcasting, wrote on the UA:PBC website. “Later we conducted workshops and lectures on the topic, analysed our existing content and outlined key issues and stereotypes that our journalists face in their work. During the process we provided editorial support and now we have launched this guide as a support to both beginners and seasoned reporters to make sound decisions,” Frey wrote.
The guidelines have been designed to help journalists avoid gender stereotypes, properly address issues around conflict, and prioritize topics related to sexual and gender-based violence at every stage of the news gathering process. A separate section of the guidelines is dedicated to working with digital platforms and social networks. The publication contains practical guidelines for gender-sensitive selection of topics and sources and offers a reading list on gender sensitive journalism.
More on the website of UA:PBC in Ukrainian.
Media Program in Ukraine Partners’ Activities
UA:PBC “Countdown” Talk Show Discusses Security and Healthcare Reform Issues
August 12 – The third “Countdown” talk show broadcast in the post-election period was a two-part episode focusing on reforms in healthcare and security.
The first half of the program was devoted to safety and security in Ukraine, as the conflict in Donbas escalated in early August 2019. The discussion touched on potential coping strategies; the corruption investigations launched into state defence contractor Ukroboronprom as a result of the “Nashi Hroshi with Denys Bihus” investigative journalism reports broadcast in March 2019; issues of disinformation; and communications regarding security issues emanating from the president’s office. Anna Kovalenko, a newly elected member of parliament for the Servant of the People party, Volodymyr Ohryzko, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsandze, current vice prime minister for European integration, were the guests for the first segment of the program.
The second part of the program focused on healthcare reform. The topic was inspired after a flash mob on social media appealed to President Zelenskyy to keep Uliana Suprun on as acting minister for health. In-studio guests Stanislav Hreshchyshyn, head of the administrative office of the Minister of Healthcare, and Lada Bulakh, newly elected member of parliament for the Servant of the People party, addressed questions on healthcare reform in small settlements throughout Ukraine, issues of reform management at the ministry level, and healthcare sector budget issues. While Hreshchyshyn supported Suprun, Bulakh did not support the idea of keeping Suprun in charge of healthcare.
The program included a vox populi segment, where journalists at regional UA:PBC branches asked people on the street for their views on security and healthcare reforms.
The program attracted viewership of around 1,200,000.
More on the website of UA:PBC in Ukrainian.
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