Businessman Ihor Kolomoiskiy intends to promote Ukrainian ideology around the world

On July 21 one of the most powerful television groups 1+1 Media controlled by Ihor Kolomoiskiy announced its plans to launch the English-language international news TV channel Ukraine Today in August.

The recently formed editorial office will be responsible for the news as part of the structure of the 1+1 Media information department. Tatyana Pushnova, who was the editor-in-chief of the TSN since September 2011, was appointed the general producer of the new TV channel.

The channel will be free and accessible through the Hotbird satellite in 2014 in Europe and starting next year also in the U.S. Besides Ukrainians, citizens of the European Union will also be part of the editorial team. «The application for a license has been submitted to the National Television Council,» Pushnova told Capital.

To outtalk Russia

At the moment, major TV groups are broadcasting only international versions of their channels targeted mainly at Ukrainians in the Diaspora, for example, 1+1 International or Inter+. The international information channel of Ukraine will air its news first. «Its audience is the international community interested in geopolitical changes and news from Eastern Europe,» Pushnova noted.

The group justifies the need for launching this product, saying that it is «critical to provide the international community access to real-time news and events in Ukraine, Russia and CIS countries. «Unfortunately, recently we have witnessed wide-scale information wars launched by the Russian mass media,» General Director of 1+1 Media Oleksandr Tkachenko commented. His company will try to assist in the creation of an objective picture from Ukraine. With time a Russian version of Ukraine Today will be launched.

General Director of the satellite platform NTB-Ukraine Ihor Davydenko says Ukraine Today could become a highly needed product, particularly in those countries where there is strong support of Ukraine. In his opinion, the Ukrainian channel will squeeze out RT (Russia Today, a Russian international multi-language information television company) in certain regions. Noteworthy is that both broadcasters are mainly based on image, rather than commercial mass media.

Expensive satisfaction

Providing for international distribution is not cheap. «In order to cover the main countries we are interested in, capacities on 4-5 satellites must be rented. This will cost US $200,000 per month,» member of the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council Oleksandr Hlushchenko specified. This means that satellite only will cost more than US $2 mn per year. Also, talks must be held on inclusion of the Ukrainian channel in foreign television platforms (satellite, Internet, cable), the expert assured.

In addition, the channel should be included in a global «hotel package». Major hotel chains have a specific pool of channels that they broadcast for their guests. News channels of RT, for example, are accessible for 28% of subscribers of cable networks in the world and more than 2.7 mn hotel rooms. Last year alone there were more than 1 bn hits on their stories through YouTube. «Our goal is to be accessible for a broad audience of Europeans. For this reason, we are planning to work with major cable operators in European countries. Also, our signal is not coded via satellite,» Pushnova said regarding the first objectives of the Ukrainian project.

No money for image-making

In Russia the state sponsors the dissemination of RT International and annually invests hundreds of millions of dollars in international image-making.

Ideological channels (first radio and then TV) that broadcast world news through a national prism to inform about national values appeared in 1920-1930. They were not owned by private shareholders. Voice of America is financed by the U.S. Congress and is subordinated to the National Information Center. BBC World News and BBC Prime are affiliated structures of BBC public television. Deutsche Welle is a part of German public television. Similar TV broadcasters exist in other countries.

In Ukraine businessmen became involved in forming the country’s image on the international arena. As Capital was informed earlier, besides 1+1 Media, the 112 Ukraina channel is planning to launch international versions of their broadcasts jointly with foreign partners.

Davydenko says promotion of international Ukrainian channels is a belated step: «For a long time we were in an isolated information gap. For this reason, the state must support business and make its own contribution to the dissemination of Ukrainian TV news all over the world. «It is normal when a country has a television channel that creates its image abroad. But it should be the state that creates and controls it in accordance with national humanitarian policy, not a private media group,» a representative of a major Ukrainian media company said, though he refused to give official commentary on the actions of competitors.

Noteworthy is that a lot of money was allocated in this year’s budget and those of previous years for the production and promotion of state programs and the adaptation of a Ukrainian-language version of the Euronews channel (UAH 753 mn in 2013, UAH 686 mn in 2014).

But earlier nobody seriously thought about financing of an English-language version of local news for western countries. As Director of the State Committee of Television and Radio Oleh Nalyvaiko told Capital, the state plans to develop foreign broadcasting on the basis of UTR, BTB and First Ukraine, but he says the project has financing problems as earlier.