Journalists have raised fears that the government may be trying to sabotage reform of public broadcasting in Ukraine after the head of the country’s national television company resigned on Nov. 1.
Zurab Alasania, who was appointed the National Television Company’s director general in March 2014, following the EuroMaidan Revolution, told media he had reached an impasse with the authorities over investigative programs that probe Ukraine’s widespread corruption.
Journalists from Ukraine’s top investigative projects also voiced concerns that Alasania’s successor might be much more loyal to Ukrainian officials.
Dmytro Gnap, a Ukrainian journalist at the Slidstvo.Info investigative program, said he thinks the resignation of Alasania will influence the editorial policy of the state-controlled First National TV channel.
“It won’t happen quickly – it’s like pumping the air out of a room full of people. If you pump it out slowly, people will fall asleep. If you squeeze person’s neck, that person will scream,” Gnap said.
“I think they will pump the air out slowly.”
One of the concerns arising from Alasania’s resignation was that the new head of the National Television Company might not extend contracts with anti-corruption investigative journalistic projects that have been broadcast on the First National TV channel over the last two years: Slidstvo.Info, Schemy (Schemes) and Nashi Groshi (Our Money).
Gnap said that it was only a matter of time before all three were taken off the schedule of the First National TV channel.
Natalie Sedletska, a journalist and presenter on Schemy, also said there was a high risk of the new management of the First National TV channel taking her program, and those like it, off the air.
“If our contract is not extended, it should be considered as a move of censorship by the authorities, curtailing the freedom of speech, and an attempt to control the country’s information policy,” Sedletska told the Kyiv Post.
In interviews with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Strana.ua and The Real Time programs, Alasania said his communications with the Ukrainian authorities had stalled because of his “principled position regarding the investigative programs.”
He said that investigations critical of the authorities were one of the reasons for his resignation, “but an indirect one.”
Valentyna Kovach, a newsroom analyst at First National TV channel, told the Kyiv Post that the public now needs to “keep an eye” on the transformation that could happen at the channel.
“(We) need to follow how the programs change. If such projects as Schemy and Slidstvo.Info disappear – that would be a disaster,” Kovach said.
Since Alasania took over as head of the National Television Company, he has been trying to transform an outdated state-run First National TV channel into a public broadcaster. The new broadcaster, called the National Public Television of Ukraine, was supposed to be launched in early 2017.
The First National TV channel has the widest broadcasting reach in the country, covering 97 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
But in 2015, a year after Alasania took over, the ratings of the channel dropped to their lowest in the last 10 years, according to Detector Media, a broadcasting watchdog. The channel had barely 1 percent of the total viewership.
In one interview, Alasania said that the ratings dropped because his team had removed from the channel programs that the audience liked. “And they liked sh*t,” he said in a June 22 interview with the Ukrainian news website Glavcom.
Top soccer matches, the popular political talk show Shuster LIVE with TV host Savik Shuster, and a show with pop star turned lawmaker Mykhailo Poplavsky were among the programs eliminated from the channel’s schedule.
Resignation reasons
In his resignation announcement, published on the MediaPort website on Nov.1, Alasania said the transition to a public broadcaster was happening more slowly than planned, and it was hard to operate on a shoestring budget.
He said that initially some Hr 1.2 billion ($48 million) was to have been allocated to set up the public broadcaster.
“Now the state is subtracting Hr 450 million for the Eurovision (Song Contest) and Hr 250 million for broadcasting fees,” Alasania wrote. “Also (subtract) Hr 149 million for expenditures, and Hr 46 million for utility bills. Another Hr 112 million will go to (cover) international activities (like the Olympics). We have Hr 193 million left. Are you serious? And after that we’re supposed to tell the country and the world that we’re launching a public broadcaster?”
Mustafa Nayyem, a former journalist and now a lawmaker with the pro-presidential Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction in parliament said in a post on Facebook that Alasania had been “basically forced to leave” the top job at First Channel.
“I’ve known Zurab for a long time, and I can say that this was not a step of weakness – you can hardly describe as weak a person who has for two years been preventing the authorities and business from interfering with the editorial policy of a channel with a 97-percent audience reach,” Nayyem wrote.
Kovach also added that paid-for PR, or advertorials disguised as news “didn’t have a chance to be on the air” under Alasania’s leadership.
“As for our work, he always could easily find answers to seemingly desperate situations. He could inspire and support the team. If there was adequate financing, this man would do the impossible.”
Fears over public broadcaster
Meanwhile, Ukrainian journalists, lawmakers and media experts on Nov. 1, have demanded in a joint letter published on Nov. 1 that the government stop sabotaging the reform of public broadcaster.
“We demand to ensure there is full funding for the public broadcaster in 2017, of the amount guaranteed by law. The holding of the Eurovision Song Contest should not be financed by cutting the funds allocated to the public broadcaster,” reads the letter.
Commenting on the row, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that “no one should question the need for a public broadcaster.” He also asked Information Minister Yuriy Stets to analyze possible threats to the launch of the public broadcaster and make appropriate proposals for their elimination.
Stets told Ukraine’s Hromadske TV channel on Nov. 2 that the financing of the Eurovision Song Contest, which is to be held in Kyiv in 2017, would not come from the budget of the public broadcaster.
Journalist Myroslava Gongadze, who has been hosting Prime Time show – a joint project of the First National TV channel and Voice of America that’s been on air since September 2015 – said she hopes that the Ukrainian government will stick to its commitment to reform the public broadcaster.
“This (public broadcaster) is an important step toward creating a free media environment in Ukraine,” Gongadze said in a written response to the Kyiv Post. “Zurab Alasania and his team showed their commitment to this cause, and it’s unfortunate that he did not receive the required support for reforming the Ukrainian public broadcaster. His resignation is a real loss to the media community in Ukraine.”
In the meantime, the State Committee on Television and Radio-Broadcasting of Ukraine is supposed to appoint an acting head of Ukraine’s National Television Company. Oleh Nalyvaiko, the committee’s head, could not be reached for comment.
