With Western help will be established in Ukraine the system of public broadcasting. Because of debts, a TV transmitter was switched off the analogue broadcasting – a half-year before the presidential election.
The Ukrainian media market is considered to be biased. Most TV and radio broadcasters belong to business people with Connections to the policy. President Petro Poroshenko has its own news channel, although it has distanced itself from this formally. Independent reporting, however, is still in its infancy, and she suffered now. The public TV stations, UA:Perschyj (Ukraine: The First one) was switched off the analogue broadcasting. Basic debt at a state-owned group that operates the transmission towers are.
So that especially viewers in the province without public television remain approximately half a year before the presidential election. “The situation is absurd,” said Diana Dutsyk, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute of media and communication, in a conversation with Deutsche Welle. On the land of the analogue reception is often the only Option. Against the Backdrop of the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine to this development is unacceptable.
With Western pressure and money reformed
The transmitter UA: Perschyj is part of the previous Staatsfunks, since in 2017, with Western, including German support to a public service media company under the name of UA:PBC will be rebuilt. The impetus of the Pro-European movement in the Winter of 2013/2014 was, however, the process has been slow. The government in Kiev showed little interest, and only the pressure of Western governments have something causes it is called in professional circles.
A project for which the EU Commission will contribute five million euros and the Federal Foreign office, one and a half million euros, provides for the creation of a modern multi-media newsroom. “Currently, preparatory work and votes are conducted,” says Kyryl Savin of the DW-Akademie, the international project lead. “I hope that, from October, construction work will begin”. 2020 should be the new “news house”.
Kyryl Savin, country Manager, Ukraine at the DW Academy
In the past decades, the state radio has been in the Ukraine a niche market. The quality of programmes was extremely low, the content of government-friendly up for propaganda purposes, the range was in the lower single-digit range. That should change now. There are new broadcast formats, in which investigative and critical of the government, it is reported. “The transmitter is basically independent and keeps distance from the government,” says media expert Diana Dutsyk. However, the political reporting is still capable of expansion.
Appeal of the German Ambassador
As in the past weeks and months in Ukraine, the analog television is switched off, provided for, among other things:Perschyi an exception. Of the current forced shutdown only the regions in Eastern Ukraine remain on the border to the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk spared. Also, the digital broadcasting and the distribution via cable networks still work, but against the Background of chronic under-funding, the question arises, for how long.
Actually, the system of public broadcasting in Ukraine would have enough money. A law, UA:should PBC received 0.2 percent of the state budget of the previous year. But the Parliament was free for 2018, only about half of the total, the equivalent of about 23 million euros. “The situation is critical,” said Rodion Nikonenko, chief financial officer of UA:PBC, DW. “It is not enough just yet, the employees salaries to pay.” For the send operation and for our own productions, no money was there.
The German Ambassador in Kiev, Ernst Reichel, said on Thursday via Twitter, to solve the financial problems of UA:PBC “as soon as possible” and for more years to come. The “trouble-free work” of the transmitter before the election, voted for the Ukraine’s top priority.
Critical voice prior to elections is undesirable?
Switlana Ostapa by the Supervisory Board of the UA:PBC does not exclude political motives for the shutdown of the analog transmitter operation and refers to the upcoming presidential election. Both investigative shipments, as well as the fact that you can grant the Sender the “no orders”, do it in government and unpopular. Similar Denis Bihus, the moderates at UA:Perschyj the investigative program “Nashi hroschi” (Our money). He sees in the under-financing of indirect “revenge” of the policy.