Ukraine/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates  

4.2.6 Media pluralism and content diversity

According to the data of the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting, there were 6 240 printed periodicals registered in Ukraine in September 2011. Approximately 70% of national and local periodicals are privately owned (their founders / owners are legal or physical entities). The State Committee on Information Policy has created a database of 667 community printed periodicals, including 28 newspapers which were founded by regional administrations, 182 by city administrations, 457 by district state administrations, district councils and editorial boards, and 10 by village authorities. Other founders are public organisations, political parties, local governments, religious institutions, educational establishments, scientific organisations, creative associations, etc. From the total number of printed periodicals (generally, newspapers and magazines) 250 at the national level are literary and artistic and 47 at the local level are cultural and educational.

There are 120 information agencies in Ukraine, 5 of which are state-owned. The key state-owned information agency Ukrinform, located in Kyiv, issues daily 500 prompt reports in English, German, Russian and Ukrainian, around 200 photos and an audio digest. Ukrinform delivers information to the media, TV channels, radio stations, official establishments and local governments, foreign embassies and Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad, and the foreign media. The server "UKRINFORM-NEWS" offers on-line free access to the sites: "Nations of the World", "Business Ukraine", "Integral Ukraine", "Ukrinform Audio / Video", "BSANNA" and "Press Center".

1 613 TV and Radio stations, under various forms of ownership, were registered in Ukraine in June 2010 (according to data of the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting). The total air time of TV and radio broadcasting is above 12 000 hours per day. About 80% of all air time is filled by non-Ukrainian products (programmes and films); this tendency increased drastically in 2010, especially of Russian products. The content of 15 national channels consists of 65.8% of Ukrainian language products and 34.2% of other languages including subtitles.

Within the system of State TV-Radio Broadcasting, there are 24 regional TV stations, the State TV Company "Crimea" and State TV-Radio Station in Kyiv and Sevastopol. The share of non-public TV and radio broadcasting constitutes 96% of the Ukrainian informational space.

There are no anti-trust measures to prevent media concentration. Maybe this is the reason that in 2010 conflicts related to frequency licenses occurred between private channels; possibly due to the observation, according to experts, that "the broadcasting networks of the relatively independent channels TVi, Channel 5 and some regional channels have been "absorbed" into media empires of those more sympathetic to the government line" (read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/93675/#ixzz1CDtYoO7N).

There are no special legislative mechanisms or governmental programmes to promote cultural issues through media or encourage the production of cultural programmes, or any specific training programmes for journalists working in the cultural sphere.

The government planned in the 2012 budget to support the implementation of the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages in the amount of UAH 1 007 000 (about 100 000 EUR), and an additional UAH 963 000 for the recreation of national minorities cultures (actually, these costs were covered by 70%).

The number of Internet users in Ukraine is increasing: in September 2009, there were 7.2 million users compared with 3.2 million in 2006, and in December 2010, their number had reached 11.3 million. Men constitute 51% of users and women – 49%. 36% are users aged between 14-29 years and 29% are aged between 25-39 years; this indicates that the Internet audience in Ukraine is rather young.

According to the survey of OpinionSoftMedia based on the user-centric approach, there are two dozens of top domains in Ukraine. The methodology is based on the work of representative panel of Internet users which have installed special software. The panel represents users all over Ukraine above 15.

Table 7:     Top-10 used domains by December, 2012

Source:  Telekritika, 24-01-2013.

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