Since the beginning of August, there has been a roiling
dispute over the transmission of the signal of ORT (the former Ostankino)--Russian
Public Television--in Ukraine. The dramatic dispute began on August 1.
That day, Ukraine switched the broadcasts of ORT to a less available frequency
channel, and thus considerably reduced the viewing audience. (See Issue
3 of PSMLPN for a background primer on broadcasting in Ukraine).
One early report from the Russian side was as follows:
“The problem of the ORT channel is probably more important for Ukrainian
TV viewers than the Black Sea Fleet problem, since it concerns everyone.”
Ukraine’s State Committee for TV and Radio has allocated one channel to
local TV stations, which they may use as they want. This frequency channel
is the present ORT decimetric channel. The local TV companies are jamming
Moscow broadcasts and interrupting ORT programs with their own programs
and commercials.
One frequentll\y given explanation for the reallocation
of the ORT channel was that at any moment ORT could present a bill to Ukraine
for the broadcast of ORT programs. Hence, “Ukraine would like to set up
an information counterflow as part of a sort of compensation for possible
concessions, and to broadcast its own programs in Krasnodar Territory,
Stavropol Territory, Tyumen Region and Russian places of dense Ukrainian
population.”
Ukrainian deputy parliamentary chairman Oleh Dyomin
avoided pubic responsibility immediately after the decision. He said that
neither Ukraine’s parliament nor its government decided to move Russian
Public Television (ORT) to another TV channel. Those who made the decision
“were in a hurry,” he told a news conference in Kharkov on August 3. According
to a directive issued by the Ukrainian State Television and Radio Broadcasting
Committee on July 18, ORT was moved to the second national channel, already
partially used by local production entities, because of ORT’s debt to the
Ukrainian State Television and Radio Company.
“This approach to the resolution of economic problems
is rather gross,” Dyomin remarked optimistically. He added, “As far as
I know the opinion of the leaders of our state, the situation will be fixed.”
Dyomin emphasized that “no political games should be seen in this decision.
However, the authorities have to think out the consequences of their every
step,” he noted.
Pravda reported that the Ukrainian Supreme Council Sub-Commission
for Television and Radio Broadcasting in mid-August called on the State
Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting to suspend the order concerning
the relays of ORT.
In the opinion of sub-commission chairman Serhiy Aksyonenko,
the Kiev television bosses’ decision is leading to heightened tension between
eastern and western regions of Ukraine and exacerbating the language problem.
All of this will fail to promote an improvement in relations with Russia
and will strengthen the information blockade against the Ukrainian population.
Aksyonenko also claimed that the order would result
in the galvanization of nationalist and chauvinistic forces, the restriction
of citizens’ rights to choose their sources of information, and a deepening
of the breakdown in spiritual and cultural ties between the Ukrainian and
Russian peoples.
In a somewhat conciliatory tone, an ORT emission in
Moscow opined that “experts consider that the best solution to the reciprocal
financial arrangements with the Russian first channel ORT would be a sort
of zero option, under which ORT would stop charging Ukrainian broadcasting
companies for the right to show ORT television programs, while the local
television and radio companies would stop charging ORT for relaying its
broadcasts.
In the meantime, millions of Russian television fans
in Ukraine can expect more unpleasantness in the near future. As of September
1, in accordance with a decision from Ukraine’s State Committee for Television
and Radio, broadcasts of Russian Television RTV, operated by the All-Russian
State TV and Radio Company VGTRK will be stopped altogether. The UT Ukrainian
Television channel which carried RTV “will then be used exclusively for
showing Ukrainian national television programs.”
On September 2, RTR confirmed that it was being reduced
in terms of distribution in Ukraine, more sharply than ORT. “Ukraine’s
viewers are saying good bye to the channels of the All-Russian State Television
and Radio Company VGTRK, which operates the Russia TV channel, RTR for
good. “Until today, only its evening programs have been replaced by Ukrainian
television programs, but now UT-2 Ukrainian Television’s second channel
will be broadcasting much more and will be replacing all the RTR programs.
Even the soap opera “Santa Barbara” is being dubbed into Ukrainian and
from Monday 4th September its heroes will be speaking Ukrainian.”
To underscore the dramatic nature of the move, on August
4, ITAR-TASS issued the results of a poll stating that ORT is the most
popular channel with Ukrainian viewers. The poll, conducted by the Democratic
Initiatives company, found that 80 per cent of those interviewed watched
Russian Public TV either “regularly” or “frequently.”
According to ITAR-TASS, this popularity explained the
“wave of protests sweeping the country in the wake of the decision to relegate
ORT television to secondary channels and allow local broadcasters to interrupt
ORT programming.”
The agency added the that Crimean parliament had adopted
a resolution requesting the republic’s government to return ORT programs
to Channel One before August 15. Mykhaylo Bakharev, the chairman of the
Crimean parliament’s standing commission on the mass media and public relations,
declared that unless the order was fully carried out, the parliament was
prepared to urge civil disobedience on the part of the Crimean inhabitants.
According to Ukrainian officials, Channel 2, on which
ORT would now be broadcast, covers 72 per cent of the Ukrainian territory
in contrast to Channel 1 which covers 97 per cent of Ukraine. Furthermore,
regional TV companies would, under the decision, be able to decide whether
to air their own or ORT programs and, in some cases, where else to move
the program.
Ukrainian officials constantly reiterated that the decision
to switch the ORT to a less popular channel was caused by the R15bn (over
three million US dollars) ORT debt to the Ukrainian State TV and Radio
Company. Zinovy Kulik, chairman of the Ukrainian State TV and Radio Company,
attributed the decision to the fact that ORT has not signed a proposed
agreement on broadcasting its programs in Ukraine. He said the problem
was to be solved on the government level and did not rule out that the
ORT might soon return to Channel 1.
Ivan Kuras, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge
of humanitarian policy, told UNIAN, the Ukrainian news agency, in an interview,
“the problem with the Russian Public Television relay in Ukraine is one
of finances rather than politics and if Ostankino [(ORT)] does repay to
Ukraine all of its debt and continue to pay promptly for its air time,
the first channel will resume broadcasting Russian Public Television.”
He added that Russian television should also pay for
its extra broadcasts to Ukraine. “If these requirements are met and if
an agreement is signed on the transmission of Russian Public Television
programs in 1995, Russian channels will operate as normal,” Ivan Kuras
said.
Viktor Petrenko, chairman of the National Television
and Radio Broadcasting Council under the president of Ukraine, in a late
August news conference, took a longer term view of the ORT problem. He
said that “the return of Ostankino [(ORT)] to Ukrainian TV screens in its
previous volume is unlikely.”
He added that three options were now under consideration
to find a solution. The most important option would allow ORT to reclaim
its previous channel on condition that it dedicates 50 per cent of its
airtime to Ukrainian productions, with Ukrainian TV channels to be broadcast
in those areas within the Russian Federation where there are a considerable
number of Ukrainians. The second option would mean the establishment of
a new TV channel to fund Ostankino TV programs on the same condition. The
third option envisages the delegation of a decision on this matter to regional
authorities.
Meanwhile, Petrenko said, Ukraine’s national television
company has not yet been issued a license to broadcast on the channel previously
occupied by Ostankino.
Protests
The changes in ORT’s carriage led to widespread protests
and varying reactions by regional politicians. After one month, in some
areas of Ukraine, particularly the East, fuller coverage of ORT had been
restored. There were protests reported throughout Ukraine. Some were
against the national decision; others, by nationalist parties, protested
local actions to augment or restore ORT’s level of coverage, especially
to benefit the substantial Russian population.
On August 23, in the Donetsk region, national democrats
circulated a statement in protest at the resumption of Russia’s ORT Russian
Public Television in place of Ukrainian TV channel two. Relays of ORT in
Donetsk reportedly returned to channel one on August 18.
The funds to be made available by Donetsk authorities
to resume ORT relays “will once again be taken away from the representatives
of the People’s Movement of Ukraine, the Prosvita society, the Christian
Democratic Party of Ukraine, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the
Ukrainian Republican Party and the Party of the Democratic Revival of Ukraine.
The statement added that “the export of information
from Russia with the aid of ORT is a strategy for the protection of the
Russian national interests and a means for the formation and manipulation
of mass consciousness among the Ukrainian public.”
Almost simultaneously, the republic’s opposition, the
Civic Congress of Ukraine party staged pickets in Donetsk, Krivoy Rog and
Lugansk. The pickets demanded yet again, the return of ORT programs to
channel one throughout Ukraine.
Similar pickets had also been planned for Kiev, but
Aleksandr Luzan, deputy chairman of the Civic Congress of Ukraine party,
told ITAR-TASS that when the pickets arrived at the building of Ukraine’s
State Television and Radio Company they were stopped by reinforced militia
patrols and warned that as soon as they unfurled a single banner they would
be detained for three hours and deported from Kiev.
According to ITAR-TASS, over 200 people have taken part
in protest actions against the Lugansk town council demanding that ORT
programs be restored to channel one.
According to ITAR-TASS, officials in Nikolayev, Odessa,
Dnepropetrovsk as well as in the Donetsk Regions and in Crimea have satisfied
such demands.
In Kharkov, members of the regional organization of
the Party of Slavic Unity of Ukraine asked the chairman of the regional
state administration, Oleksandr Maselskyy, to resume broadcasts of ORT
programs in Kharkov in their entirety and on the same channel. On August
29, about 20 members of this organization picketed the state administration’s
building for three hours.
In an interview with UNIAN, Ukrainian People’s Deputy
Volodymyr Alekseyev described the cessation of Ostankino programs on channel
thirty-two as “a gross violation of current Ukrainian legislation.” He
said that he would do everything to ensure that the issue is raised in
the Supreme Council, which ought to guarantee citizens’ rights. Oleksandr
Romanenko, the director of the regional TV transmission center, told UNIAN
that channel three and channel 32 in the region had equal coverage and
that local viewers had not suffered. Broadcasts by ORT continue throughout
the region on channel three.
In Kharkov, according to an August 10 report by UNIAN,
Mayak radio relays have resumed in Kharkov, after a three-month break.
The Stank joint stock company pledged it would pay for the round the clock
transmissions. The director of the region’s radio and TV broadcasting center,
Oleksandr Romanenko, has told Unian that under an agreement, the Stank
company would pay over 200m karbovantsi per day for the round the clock
relay of Mayak by the end of the year 1995.
An agreement was being drafted, the UNIAN report continued,
under which the Stank joint stock company would pay for the daily 12-hour
broadcasts of Russian Public Television ORT in the city of Kharkov and
Kharkov region: ORT programs were switched to channel thirty-two because
ORT refused to pay for the relay of its programs. Under the agreement,
the Stank joint stock company should pay about 3bn karbovantsi per month
for the relay of ORT broadcasts. Romanenko assumed that the relays of Mayak
and ORT programs would, therefore, not be halted in 1996 as they have been
in 1995. That concluded the UNIAN report.
Dnepropetrovsk
On August 31, according to Ukrainian Radio, the head
of the Dnepropetrovsk regional state administration, Pavel Lazarenko, issued
a decree ordering the resumption of relays of Russian Public Television
ORT on its former channel. The decision was taken, he said, because several
thousand petitions had been received by local authorities containing complaints,
especially from old people, that older TV sets could not receive the frequency
band to which all the popular programs from Moscow had been switched. Older
television sets cannot take decimetric frequency channels 13 to 49 without
a special device and antenna. These are expensive to buy, the quality is
poor, plus many areas are off the signal distribution area. As head of
the regional administration, Lazarenko believes that this impedes the right
of the citizens to receive full and diverse information.
Lazarenko said that it would take money to improve the
channel status of ORT in Dneproperovsk. The final decision on the necessary
funds for the broadcast of ORT on its former channels and the source for
such funds will be adopted by the September session of the regional council.
The necessary funds for the resumption of broadcasts have been supplied
by sponsors: the commercial bank Privatbank and other commercial bodies.
Ukrainian radio reported in early September that “not
a month has passed since Sevastopol’s leadership sent a telegram of protest
to the management of Russian Public Television ORT. Unfortunately, another
telegram of protest has been sent to Moscow, because misinformation has
again been broadcast in one of the most popular programs, “Vremya.”
On August 14, Vremya broadcast a report, according to
the Ukrainian account, without a source, which said that the town’s executive
authorities supposedly appealed to the International Court of Justice in
the Hague with regard to Sevastopol’s Russian status. As no such thing
actually occurred, the Ukrainian announcer said, the Sevastopolites demanded
a retraction and a reply to the question of who had been sending such nonsense
to Moscow. However, this was greeted with silence.
Moreover, according to the Ukrainian radio emission,
another sensational report was broadcast on the news program from Moscow,
saying that Sevastopolites were supposedly to be denied the opportunity
of watching ORT broadcasts as of September 1. In reality, just the opposite
is true, it claimed. On August 29, Sevastopol’s administration paid 1.2bn
karbovantsi to the Crimean Radio and Television Broadcasting Center, thus
ensuring normal relays of Russian television.
The events in Ukraine gave birth to other somewhat contradictory
reports. ITAR-TASS reported, on August 31, that the population of Sevastopol,
Russia’s major Black Sea naval base and Ukraine’s city, had been cut off
from the Russian Public Television ORT. A document signed by relay service
director Aleksey Dmitriyev was read at a meeting of the city administration,
ITAR-TASS claimed, saying that the local television company had not paid
for “the best transmitter” which was provided to it for broadcasting ORT.
Earlier, a conflicting report was distributed by UNIAN:
“The Ukrainian leadership realizes that there has to be a special approach
to Crimea in this matter,” Yevhen Suprunyuk, Crimean parliament chairman,
has told Unian. He revealed that ORT Russian Public Television relays in
Crimea were the subject of his meeting with Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma. He added that Ukraine’s Derzhteleradio State Television and Radio
Committee had already released 14,000m karbovantsi for the needs of the
local radio and television transmission center and Crimea’s state TV and
radio company.
“Crimea stands to receive another 100,000m karbovantsi
towards the cost of the reversing the ORT channel changeover in Crimea
and the repair and purchase of equipment for the radio and television transmission
center,” said Yevhen Suprunyuk. He added that Krymavtohazservis had also
made available 1,000m karbovantsi for this purpose. “I am sure that Crimeans
will be able to watch ORT on the first channel as early as one week’s time,”
said Suprunyuk.
Elsewhere, the Ukrainian National Patriotic Bloc of
Lvov, uniting 53 parties and public organizations, issued a declaration
August 9 supporting the Ukrainian State Committee on Television and Radio
Broadcasting. The switching of Moscow programmes to another channel is
a forced measure and a warning to the Russian mass media, says the document.
“After Ukraine proclaimed its independence, the mass
media of Russia started an anti-Ukrainian campaign. Russian television
provides false information on the foreign and domestic policy of our country,
interfering with our domestic affairs,” says the declaration. The Ukrainian
National Patriotic Bloc of Lvov region called the funding of Russian television
transmission from local budgets by oblast councils of some regions anti-nationalistic.
Activists belonging to democratic forces in Nikolayev
in south Ukraine on August 15 picketed the state regional administration.
The numerous participants in the action called for the redirection of funds
used to finance the relay of Russian Public Television ORT to meet the
region’s social needs, such as health care, education, pay for medical
personnel and teachers, help for the needy and the eradication of cholera.
The pickets backed the reallocation of ORT’s channel
by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Committee of Ukraine.
According to an ORT report, advocates of the channel’s
restoration in Nikolayev who organized picketing of the regional television
and radio company’s premises “have got their way. In any case, the relay
of ORT in Nikolayev has once again been put back on the channel which is
available to the majority of viewers. The length of time that channel one
ORT closes down has been reduced to a minimum, not more than half an hour
each day. At the moment, the regional authorities in Nikolayev are seeking
funds to pay for a full-scale relay of ORT.”