In Ukraine, TV Shakes Off Some Shackles

by Judy Dempsey
International Herald Tribune, 12 December 2004

Kiev-During the huge antigovernment demonstrations that engulfed Independence Square here over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of protesters were bombarded with information.Some of it consisted of factual fliers telling people how they could obtain free accommodation, transport or a hot meal. Others gave information about the latest proceedings in a raucous Parliament torn between those who wanted a radical reform that would weaken the powers of the presidency and those who wanted to preserve the status quo that existed before the disputed Nov. 21 election. But there was one small white piece of paper that in some ways encapsulated what had happened to Ukraine's democracy over the past few years under the helm of the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma.

This little flier gave the phone numbers of the country's main television channels and simply appealed to anyone reading it to contact the network and ask them why they were censoring the street protests. "In most cases, journalists have now started to tell the truth and report on the news in a fairly objective way on television," said Olexandr Tkachenko, chairman of New Channel TV. New Channel TV is part of the Interpipe industrial conglomerate, whose chairman is Viktor Pinchuk, Kuchma's son-in-law. "The genie has been let out of the bottle. I don't think we can go back to the pre-Nov. 21 days when the news was so biased." During the 1990s, after Ukraine had won its independence from Russia, television and the print media had to fight for freedom, particularly to create some distance from the political powers. Over the past few years, however, three big developments have taken place in Ukraine that have radically changed the structure and independence of television.

The first was Kuchma's decision two years ago to appoint Viktor Medvedchuk as his chief of staff. Medvedchuk, who has close contacts with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, also runs his own political party, the United Social Democratic Party. Even more important for his political ambitions, Medvedchuk is one of the main shareholders in the Inter Television channel, a popular private channel that enjoys a big advantage over its rivals - the fact that it was awarded the license of one of the major state networks from Soviet times. "That means Inter TV has almost blanket coverage across Ukraine," said Olexandr Martynenko, general director of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency and former press secretary to Kuchma.

The second thing to happen was the establishment of new commercial television networks, the majority owned by the country's main oligarchs. Pinchuk's Interpipe group, in addition to owning New Channel TV, also owns the ICTV and STB channels. Media analysts said these networks tried to be neutral in the few weeks before the presidential election, a big shift from previous months. Another major Ukrainian channel, 1+1, is backed by Ukrainian businessmen, with a large foreign stake held by the U.S. entrepreneur Ronald Lauder, who has invested heavily in television networks in Central Europe and Romania. The station enjoys the same big advantage as Inter TV, having also inherited the license of a former Soviet network. But media analysts said that Medvedchuk wields the real political power behind 1+1, which explains why the channel, until recently, backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich for president. In eastern Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, head of System Capital Management, the giant conglomerate that spans metallurgy, steel, financial services and transport, owns Ukrainia, a television and radio channel. Along with the state-run National Television of Ukraine, known as Channel One, Ukrainia also supported Yanukovich.

One of the main channels that unreservedly opted for the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, was Channel 5, which is owned by another oligarch, Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko, who is based in Kiev, has large interests in confectionary, shipbuilding and car assembling. The channel now ranks third in popularity and has 40 percent coverage of the country. The third major thing that happened to the Ukrainian media was the creation of ties between the television editors and the presidential administration. Before the election, the oligarchs, or at least the editors of their television channels, cooperated with Kuchma's bid to get Yanukovich elected. "It was such an abnormal situation before Nov. 21," said Arten Petrenko, director of news for Channel One. "Channel One is not financed by a license fee such as the BBC in Britain or Germany's national TV channels. Politicians would say to us that if we showed this or that program or news they would vote for our budget in the Parliament. This came from both the Yanukovich and Yushchenko camps."

There were other kinds of pressure too, not only on Channel One but on the commercial networks. "For Channel One, there was the official instructions from the administration," said Petrenko. "But there was also the 'temnyky' sent to all the television channels as well. These temnyky were more than proposals or suggestions over what political line editors should take. They were sort of instructions from the presidential administration. It was really abnormal." Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have said journalists were often intimidated, fired for not toeing the official line, beaten up and even killed. When asked why Kuchma was acting in this way, Petrenko paused. "I think the power tried to make a dictatorship but it failed," he said. Since Nov. 21 and the immense pressure from the public, changes are already noticeable among some of the networks.

The most striking shift has taken place at 1+1. Martynenko said, "1+1 has now really terrific news coverage." Indeed, some Ukrainian editors have suggested that Ronald Lauder was responsible for these changes, having spoken to the management of 1+1 and asking the network to adopt a more independent stance. Tkachenko of New Channel TV said Pinchuk's channels, too, had become more objective. Curiously, however, television editors and media analysts are not entirely convinced that the changes that have taken place over the past few weeks will become entrenched overnight. They said much depends not only on the owners but also the determination of the journalists to maintain the pressure for objective reporting.

"The journalists are very well paid," Martynenko said. "Good ones are paid $1,200. They can still be sacked." The average monthly salary in Ukraine is $300. Tkachenko, however, still said he believed there was no going back to pre-Nov. 21 days. But he, too, has some reservations. "People have lost their fear," he said. "There is no doubt about that. But I am no romantic. I don't think the television will be so free as it is now. You see how the channels can be owned by different persons but controlled by someone else. "But we have to keep our feet on the ground and keep demanding transparency."