Ukraine TV channel experiments with vertical series programming

During a special event at KYIV MEDIA WEEK 2017 international media forum, "Series. How-to" dedicated to studies of leading world experiences and trends of series production, a report was presented by Ukraine TV channel representative Natalya Strybuk; its title was "National Trends in Producing Vertical Series of Ukraine TV Channel".

Initially, the speaker singled out an important feature of series content viewing by Ukrainian audience, which is the trend of watching TV as a background activity. According to Ukraina representative, presently the audience is not ready to get immersed in long fabula-type stories envisaging emotional stress and frequently rather traumatic experiences. Due to this, a demand for vertical series emerges, where each new episode contains a totally different story, with familiar characters traveling from one episode to the next – therefore, one can start viewing the series from any episode. Successful examples of such format on Ukraine TV channel are Agents of Justice and Doctor on Call which demonstrated rather high rankings in comparison with prime-time TV novellas.

Besides, due to the popularity of medical and detective settings, Ukraina is going to launch two more similar projects in the nearest suture, The Specials detective series and Doctor Kovalchuk medical drama; 45 episodes of the latter’s first season will be broadcast in early prime-time starting from October 30.

Natalya Strybuk has also noted that the audience has grown more loyal to Ukraine-produced content. If, according to the surveys, in 2007 31 per cent of the population were ready to watch Ukrainian projects, in 2016 the proportion has grown to 55 per cent.