Ukraine

[UA] Concept of PSM during wartime adopted

IRIS 2022-9:1/6

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

The Supervision Council of the joint stock company the National Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (NSTU) has approved a new edition of the broadcasting concept for regional branches of the public service broadcaster. The key revision lies in the need to take account of and adapt the broadcasting policies in response to the current full-scale war in Ukraine.

The public broadcaster was established by the Statute “On Public Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine”, which entered into force on 15 May 2014. Civil society representatives form the majority of the Supervision Council of the company, and its powers include the approval of its executive structures (see IRIS 2014-6/36). Currently the NSTU has 24 regional branches for all the Ukrainian provinces.

The updated concept explains the necessity of the changes as a result of the situation of public service broadcasting after the start of Russian aggression on 24 February 2022. It notes that the regional branch in Lviv became the back-office for the whole company, while the branch in Transcarpathia became the reserve broadcasting centre. The NTSU lost the possibility of broadcasting from the occupied territories of Donbas and Kherson. A number of NSTU staff members relocated to safer territories. Linear broadcasting of news, initially limited to the morning and evening hours of the regional branches’ programming, has become practically round-the-clock. At the same time, the updated concept points out that with the start of the full-scale aggression the audience has largely shifted to online sources of news and information, including the online resources of the NSTU.

In order to sustain the company’s activity, to decentralise it beyond Kyiv so as to prevent the disruption of PSB in case of direct attacks, to diversify its production (at risk during the war), and to preserve editorial independence, the establishment of six decentralised production hubs of the NSTU is envisaged. These hubs will enable the relocation and bringing together of staff and technical resources, establish discussion platforms for the local communities, create local narratives, and counteract stereotypes and stigmatisation, as well as Russian disinformation. Each hub will be responsible for at least four hours of TV content, mostly journalist investigations, documentaries, current affairs programmes on particular provinces and the life of their inhabitants.

The six hubs will work with local independent production companies to outsource the making of programmes through contests. Each of the regions of Ukraine will have an annual contest “Create with the PSB” to find the best projects that will be funded by the NSTU. “Regional digital teams” will be engaged in the production and mentoring of content for the websites of the NSTU, and its accounts on YouTube and social networks.

In view of the fact that a significant part of its traditional audience has moved abroad, the NSTU notes in the concept its responsibility to establish a platform for Ukrainians all over the world who wish to follow the Ukrainian agenda.