Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, owned by billionaire tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, says that authorities are trying to strip it of its broadcasting license. The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine says the channel will receive its license no later than Jan. 6.
The channel’s management, as well as its employees, published a joint letter on Dec. 29 addressed to President Petro Poroshenko, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.
The letter says that the license of the 1+1 TV Channel expires on Dec. 29. The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine voted on Dec. 15 for it to be extended. However, the 1+1 team says that it has not yet been renewed.
“During the last two weeks we have been receiving messages from different sources that the Presidential Administration is trying to influence the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting’s decision making to transfer control over the channel to other hands,” the letter says.
In an emailed comment, press service of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting told the Kyiv Post that 1+1 has nothing to worry about. According to the legislation on television and radio broadcasting, the council does not have to hand over the renewed paper license until the old one expires.
Therefore, the council could not have given the license to 1+1 earlier than Dec. 29. According to the Council’s press service, the day when the extended license is given to a broadcaster also depends when the license fee was paid. Taking these factors into account, the council will give the extended license to the 1+1 channel no later than Jan. 6, 2017.
However, the council’s press service noted, the license itself has been already prolonged for another seven years and has been valid since Dec. 15, when the vote took place.
The press service of the Presidential Administration told the Kyiv Post that the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine is an independent body, and nobody interferes with its work.
“We hope that the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting and the channel’s management will soon and without inappropriate politicizing conduct a technical procedure of exchanging all the necessary documents,” press service said in an emailed note.
In the letter, employees of the 1+1 TV channel refer to Poroshenko as “a person that, among other things, invested own assets and resources into media in Ukraine.”
“You, as anyone else, have to understand the importance of this issue and the unacceptability of the situation when, despite legal procedure, the channel can’t prolong its license,” the channel said in the statement.
The letter’s authors point out that the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting did not make any negative remarks regarding 1+1’s work.
“Symbolically, the leading news service of Ukraine, TSN (by 1+1) will turn 20 years old on Jan. 1, 2017,” the letter says. “The channel’s reporters have not once witnessed attempts to take over the editorial policy of the channel. However, the trust and support of millions of viewers have helped us find our way out of difficult situations in the past.”
1+1’s announcement followed earlier comments made on Facebook by fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko. He said that Poroshenko has been interested in getting a share in the 1+1 TV Channel as part of the process of nationalizing PrivatBank through a backroom deal with Kolomoisky.
The Presidential Administration has repeatedly denied the accusations made by Onyshchenko against Poroshenko, calling them a personal campaign against Poroshenko while accusing Onyshchenko of cooperating with Russian intelligence agencies.
Critics have questioned Onyshchenko’s credibility, citing criminal charges alleging that he stole Hr 1.6 billion ($64 million) from state-owned gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya. Onyshchenko denies the charges. He fled Ukraine before being stripped of parliamentary immunity in July.
Ukraine’s government nationalized the country’s largest commercial bank, Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank, on Dec. 18 after it failed to fill an Hr 148 billion hole ($5.6 billion) in its books.
