Ukraine

[UA] Foreign TV severely restricted

IRIS 2015-7:1/30

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

The Supreme Rada adopted on 14 May and the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed into force on 4 June amendments to the 1996 Law on Advertising (see IRIS 1997-1/20) and 2006 Law on Broadcasting (see IRIS 2006-5/34) that affect some foreign broadcasters. The amendments enter into force on 5 August 2015.

The amendments introduce a total ban on commercials in TV programmes of foreign TV and radio entities that broadcast (rebroadcast) in Ukraine unless those entities are under jurisdiction of the states that are members of the EU or parties to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT).

They also introduce a requirement that a Ukrainian entity that intends to rebroadcast programmes of foreign entities that are not under the jurisdiction of the states that are members of the EU or parties to the ECTT may start rebroadcasting only if it has a license from the right-holder and only under condition that such programmes (channels) correspond to the laws of Ukraine or to the ECTT and are included in the list of programmes (channels) that are permitted to be retransmitted by a decision of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting (see IRIS 1998-4/14).