Ukraine’s only public terrestrial television channel, UA: Pershyi, was taken off the air on June 18 because of unpaid debts, its management said in statement.
The state radio broadcasting and television operator has now suspended the analogue broadcasting of UA: Pershyi in several cities, including Kyiv, Vinnytsya, Dnipro, Odesa, Ternopil, and Chernihiv.
The owner of the channel, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, reportedly failed to pay Hr 75 million ($2.8 million) for transmission services.
UA: Pershyi is still available in digital format as well as online and on cable networks, the channel’s press service said in a statement issued on June 19. It said the debt had built up because the channel was insufficiently funded.
“For 2018, the state budget of Ukraine allotted only Hr 776.5 million ($29.5 million) for financing the national public broadcaster, which is less than half the amount guaranteed by law,” the statement read.
“In addition, funds for transmission services have not been allotted at all since April 2018.”
According to the law, public broadcaster is to receive annual funds equivalent to 0.2 percent of the state budget.
The National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine repeatedly appealed to the parliament regarding the critical situation with underfunding and warned it might lead to the loss of analogue broadcasting.
Minister for Information Policy of Ukraine Yuriy Stets said it was inadmissible to pull the plug on UA: Pershyi because of its debts.
“The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and Verkhovna Rada have to resolve the issue of funding the national public broadcaster immediately,” Stets said in a statement released on June 19. “The ministry will submit its proposals on settling the debt in the comings days.”
Television remains the most popular medium in Ukraine, and the ownership of channels is mostly concentrated in the hands of a few rich oligarchs. UA: Pershyi is the only public broadcaster among a clutch of television channels owned by private media holdings.
According to the Media Ownership Monitor, a study by Reporters Without Borders and the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information (IMI), over three quarters of all viewers in Ukraine watch channels owned by the four largest media groups: Viktor Pinchuk’s StarLightMedia, Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s 1+1 Media, Dmytro Firtash’s Inter Media, and Rinat Akhmetov’s Media Group Ukraine.
The study also found that 10 out of 12 television channels were directly or indirectly linked to political figures or individuals with strong political affiliations.
Even if UA: Pershyi does resume analogue broadcasting, it may not be for long: Ukraine has been planning to transfer to digital television for over a decade, and according to the latest plans, the switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting will start on July 1.
