Revenues on the media market dropped by 35% due to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis caused by it, which poses a threat to the Ukrainian media landscape, member of the Servant of the People faction Mykyta Poturayev, who is also the Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, said.
“I think there is much more danger. According to the data we receive, revenues on the media market have dropped by 35% as of today. So, there are questions even about the media owned by oligarchs, and not only independent ones… The situation in the financial and industrial groups which own these channels is also far from cloudless. Mildly speaking, their prospects are also not cloudless, therefore we may see serious upheavals on this market, which may affect not only independent media, which are also facing a very difficult situation, but also large media groups,” he said in an exclusive interview to Interfax-Ukraine.
The MP also said that it is necessary to take steps to protect the domestic media industry from Russia’s influence.
“In connection with this, we have to give a serious consideration to the issue of preserving Ukraine’s media industry as our aggressive neighbor Russia is liberal with support to their media despite oil prices because its regime in many aspects is based on the media and propaganda broadcast by it. With an aggressive media environment in the neighborhood, which regularly tries to seize our media landscape, we have to give a serious consideration to the issue of how we can help our Ukrainian media to overcome this corona-crisis,” Poturayev said.
