President Kuchma appoints his representatives to the state agency in charge of licensing broadcast media after year-and-a-half delay
broadcast media, allowing it to resume work after a year-and-a-half break.
The National TV and Radio Council, which consists of four members appointed by parliament and four presidential representatives, has been inactive since December 1998 due to Kuchma’s failure to name his appointees.
After the term of the previous Council expired, parliament appointed its four representatives, all from opposition leftist factions.
The unfavorable makeup of the Rada-appointed half of the council led Kuchma to delay naming his appointees until the recently formed pro-presidential majority in the Verkhovna Rada appointed a new set of parliamentary representatives to the Council last month.
Kuchma’s appointees include Volodymyr Hranovsky of the Agency for Humanitarian Technologies think tank in Kyiv; Mykola Bahrayev, head of Tavriyski Ihry (Tavriya Games) show business firm; Yury Plaksyuk, president of ICTV television channel; and Hryhory Kholod, deputy education minister.
Kuchma’s spokesman, Oleksandr Martynenko, who is also the founder of the country’s leading news agency, Interfax-Ukraine, had widely been expected to be appointed as well, but no replacement for him could be found in time, Ukrainian media reported.
Kuchma said he might replace one of the council members with Martynenko later, when a new presidential spokesperson was found.
Under the law, Council members are barred from any commercial activity, including having stakes in broadcast media, during their four-year tenure.
The Council’s status makes it one of the most influential regulators in the domestic media market, given its authority to withdraw or grant broadcast licenses for TV and radio stations.
Parliament’s new representatives on the Council include the former head of non-state-run TV channel STB, Mykola Knyazhytsky, a journalist from state-owned UT-1 channel Viktor Leshyk, and writers Yury Pokalchuk and Mykyta Poturayev.
