Ukrainian TV Market is Oversaturated: Should Only Two TV Groups Remain?

A lion’s share of revenues for the Ukrainian television groups are provided by revenues from advertising, while the profits from digital activity or from selling their own content are too small in comparison. The total volume of the TV advertising market (which this year is projected to slightly exceed 4 billion UAH) cannot “cover” the cost of producing high-quality TV content, especially if we are talking about series pruduction.

At today’s opening conference of the sixth international forum KYIV MEDIA WEEK, the head of StarLightMedia group Vladimir Borodiansky explained that, currently, the production cost of the cheapest of TV series is in the range of $30-40 thousand per hour-episode ($60 thousand for something of more high-quality and not the cheapest). At the same time, according to Borodiansky, an hour on television brings in about $5000, and that is if the product had good audience reception (share at the level of 10 and above). So the industry is able to cover the cost of the cheapest projects by doing reruns, but can only dream of a TV series on the level of “The Sniffer”, for instance.

One of the most logical ways out of this situation, according to Vladimir Borodiansky, is a natural reduction in the number of players on the Ukrainian TV market. “If we want to remain profitable, only two media groups should remain. Then these two media groups will have profitable broadcasting businesses, and the rest – profitable businesses in content creation”, considers the head of StarLightMedia.

VI International media forum KYIV MEDIA WEEK will be held from 19 to 23 of September 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine). The full program can be found on the forum’s official website, and on Facebook.