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| PHÎÒÎ: UNIAN |
Ukraine’s cultural and informational spheres began gaining true independence at the beginning of autumn of 1995. Prior to that, the Russian state-owned channel Ostankino, which starting from April 1995 turned into the private channel ORT (Public Russian Television), was the most popular among the Ukrainian TV audience following a tradition that was established during the Soviet times
Ukrainian television played the second fiddle back then. Since it was not popular among the viewing audience, it was difficult for TV channels to find investors and advertisers in order to develop financially and technologically to improve the quality of TV programs. Meanwhile, the low quality of products did not boost the size of the viewing audience. It was like a vicious circle.
Zinoviy Kulik, who was appointed head of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Committee formed on January 3, 2005, managed to find a solution without obtaining the corresponding decisions of the parliament, government or the president. Taking advantage of the absence of an inter-governmental agreement with Russia on broadcasting of Russian TV channels in Ukraine, non-fulfillment by Ostankino of its financial liabilities under an agreement with the Ukrainian national broadcasting company and the unwillingness of ORT to conclude an agreement on payment of services, Kulik passed a decision conveying the issue of re-broadcasting the Russian TV channel under the jurisdiction of regions starting from autumn. This meant that regional state-owned TV and radio companies operating as independent legal entities were granted the right to conclude agreements with ORT on volumes and financial conditions of broadcasting the ORT Channel in their regions.
This decision had a number of rather important consequences. First of all, the financial issue was extremely sensitive for ORT and Ukrainian regional TV and radio companies, which is why the volumes of ORT broadcasting on the territory of Ukraine dropped sharply compared with the previous 19 hours a day. Local TV and radio companies started filling the remaining air time with their own products. They also got the opportunity to replace commercials on ORT programs with advertising that they find on their own. This considerably increased the interest of investors and advertisers in local television and radio companies.
The interest of investors and advertisers in national television grew even more. The enhanced interest of advertisers inspired the interest of investors and vice versa. As a result, several powerful national Ukrainian private TV companies appeared and in the following years their number grew substantially.
Finally, perhaps the most important result of this was that the Ukrainian TV audience got into the habit of first watching national TV channels – local and nationwide – only after that Russian channels. Ukrainian television finally could offer viewers quality TV shows and programs of their own production, as well as licensed western TV products. Moreover, the level of pay of employees in Ukraine’s TV industry – from journalists and TV anchors and cameramen to directors, advertising agents and managers – grew considerably. Competition between the channels also became stiff in the sphere of human resources. Needless to say, all these factors contributed to improvement in the level of quality of domestic TV products.
The switch in interests of the Ukrainian TV audience from Russian news to local (regional and national) news considerably weakened Russia’s possibilities of manipulating public opinion in Ukraine. Naturally, this opened a window of opportunity for the Ukrainian leadership to manipulate the minds of citizens. However, unlike Russia, Ukraine saw real political competition develop over the years that followed. The continuously developing competition between news programs of different TV companies was a clear reflection of this fact.
Of course, this does not imply that what Russian or any other foreign politicians say about the situation in Ukraine it is not interesting for Ukrainians, but merely points to the fact that over the past 15 years Ukrainians have grown accustomed to developing their own opinions from watching Ukrainian TV products.
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