State of Turmoil. By Clive Whittingham, C21Media

Ukraine’s television business has not escaped the repercussions of months of political upheaval and violence in the country. Clive Whittingham reports.

The ongoing turmoil in Ukraine has seen Crimea come under Russian control and pro-Russian gunmen attempt to take over eastern parts of the country. A shaky truce has since been established but talks have so far failed to ease tensions. Television channels have been shut down in some regions and replaced with Russian stations, and journalists have been arrested.

Following the presidential elections in May and the swearing in of Petro Poroshenko on June 7, thoughts within the TV industry turned to the long-term impact such divisions will have on the business.

Ukraine was previously known for both the high number of programmes imported from Russia and for being the third-largest European market for adaptations of Western formats such as X Factor, Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance.

Victoria Yarmoshchuk, director of the KYIV MEDIA WEEK TV market and conference, tells C21 she expects there will be fewer of the former and more of the latter on Ukrainian television screens, creating opportunities for international distributors.

She says: "Due to the political situation, there is a high probability that Russian content will not be so widely broadcast in Ukraine. There are a lot of Russian television series – about detectives, military people and the police – that were once very popular in Ukraine, but they are about Russian people. Some channels have announced they are not going to air these series any more. We could lose half of that programming from our TV schedules."

"That may create a lot of room for foreign products – not only for format adaptations but also ready-made series. Foreign content could find more space in Ukrainian schedules and coproductions could also develop. Therefore, we expect many more foreign sellers at our market and big changes in broadcasting and production policies, in both Ukraine and Russia."

For Eugene Bondarenko, chief operating officer at Ukraine’s StarLightMedia – which operates commercial channels including STB, Novy Kanal, ICTV and M1 – the main problem has been a rapidly declining advertising market and the decreasing value of the currency, the hryvnia.

Clive Whittingham

30-06-2014

©C21Media

This article continues. For the full story, click here.