Email this article The Emergence of Non-State TV in the Ukraine
Abstract: This paper examines the emergence of various forms of non-state television in the Ukraine. In the absence of regulatory machinery, cable and cassette technologies permit operators to broadcast pirated material without any concern for variety, quality, or copyright considerations, and to treat the airwaves like private property.
Résumé: Les auteurs abordent le phénomène d'émergence de différentes formes de télévision en Ukraine, autres qu'étatiques. En l'absence de réglementation adéquate, le câble et les cassettes permettent la diffusion de toute sorte de matériel piraté, sans égard à la qualité ou aux droits d'auteur. Les ondes sont alors considérées comme une propriété privée.
Against the backdrop of the total disintegration of the former Soviet Union and its structures the situation in television seems to be calm if not stable. Every night millions of children continue to watch the national "evening tale" which has not changed its format since their parents viewed the program years ago. Every night adult Muscovites watch what used to be called Vremya (Time) but now carries the unpretentious title Information Program. Like many other programs in the schedule, these two have preserved much of the same format they had before. Republican programming has undergone even less change than Moscow's Central TV. But this stability is deceptive. New political and social developments will probably lead to the disappearance of these programming elements and the birth of a new TV structure and format. Such a structure will also have to make room for non-state television, a new phenomenon in the life of Soviet viewers.
Three different crises have led to the impasse: (1) the administrative re- organization of the State Company for Television and Radio, a 70-year-old nomenclatura monster from Gosteleradio times. The second crisis consists in the loss of financial state support for broadcasting, while the third resulted from the public's demand for a rethinking of the communicator- audience relationship. This relationship must in the future be based on the trust of the viewer, rather than on manipulation. Gosteleradio's current disintegration is being brought about by the rush to decentralization of its 15 branches, all of which are not only claiming independence from the centre, but also demanding autonomy within their new republics. Together with the other political developments this means that centralized information direction is a matter of the past in the ex-Soviet Union and that Tass, Pravda, Radio Moscow, and, of course, central television will have to reconstitute themselves along new lines.
Alternative and State Television
The monopolistic TV industry of the ex-Soviet Union is being undermined not only by the decentralizing national TV companies, but also by what is usually called "alternative television." The idea of alternative TV co-existing with the state-run network broadcasting was first proposed in July 1988 and has since then undergone three transformations. At its inception (1988-89) it was conceived as a novel institution which would oppose the centrally organized and nomenklatura-run state set-up. This initiative was widely supported both by media professionals as well as the public both of which saw it as a way to combat state control and the rearguard actions of its bureaucrats during the glasnost drive. In this first stage public debate focused on the meaning of such important concepts as "independent," "public," "people's," "non-state," "second," "other," as well as "parallel television." These deliberations were marked by active distrust on the part of certain groups as well as unbridled euphoria on the part of those who were in favour of opinion pluralism, artistic freedom, and the absence of censorship.
In the second stage between 1990-91, the first alternative institutional structures were created in the midst of Gosteleradio's disintegration. The newly born alternative stations in turn were more than satisfied to lease Gosteleradio or Ministry of Communications' facilities or to go in on joint ventures with state television. This period also witnessed the beginnings of concentration with stronger broadcasting companies taking over smaller outlets and in the process creating two huge (by USSR standards) conglomerates, TONIS and Nika-TV.
The third stage of reorganization was ushered in by the failed coup d'état of August 1991. Its erosion of Party political power accelerated and brought about revolutionary changes in all other social structures including state television. State-run television's three channels with a regional reach were broken up. One channel went to the pro-Yeltsin Russian TV, another to St. Petersburg's liberal authorities, and the future of the third and most influential First Program was left in the balance, while the various heads of the republics continue to discuss its fate. Unfortunately none of the republics' leaders are interested in developing a broadcast infrastructure which is politically independent of the government of the day, which makes the First Program's survival precarious. On the whole the new republican elites are more interested in creating obedient regionally based mass media which will wean away audiences from the Moscow press, radio, and television, than in assuring opinion pluralism. Though central institutions are by now in shambles, new spaces for a more pluralistic broadcast landscape have not yet emerged and new ways of interacting within and between republic based broadcast organizations are yet in their infancy.
As in most countries of the world "alternative television" takes two major forms in the ex-Soviet Union. It is made up of both cable and over-the-air distributed services. Cable television which is supported by advertising sponsors and subscriber fees is of very recent origin in the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. The first services were not introduced until 1988 and at that time carried only one channel. This was programmed with Western films and music television clips. Even today, the 600 to 800 cable stations do not create their own programming, but re-transmit foreign fare in order to attract viewers and to cover their costs. Technically, too, these systems are primitive in comparison with Western standards, being of the one-channel, one-wire variety. The audiences for these services are also very small, sometimes consisting of not more than 150 subscribers, organized into neighbourhood or hotel networks. In spite of these small subscriber numbers, the total viewership of cable systems is estimated to be about two million. Most of these viewers are located in big cities like Moscow (Saburovo, Ekran), St. Petersburg, and others, where cable operations average between 150,000 to 200,000 subscribers. Of course these large cable operators also have the most technologically advanced transmission facilities using dish antennas and offering a basic program of four to five channels. As of today, most of these cable services are located in the Russian and Ukrainian republics, while the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan has only six cable operations. Such statistics indicate that cable development is still in its infancy in the ex-Soviet states and that demand and coverage are as yet quite unbalanced in the different republics.
Over-the-air broadcasters, the second type of non-state television, are also quite limited in number. There are only about 10 such companies in Russia and the Ukraine, which rent or buy the necessary technical facilities from the state organizations and utilize unoccupied frequencies. In rare cases these stations buy both a frequency and a transmitter, as is the case with TVK in Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka. Several very large companies with more than 50 branches in the different regions of a republic have both broadcasting as well as cable facilities. They combine these two transmission possibilities in order to be able to afford satellite transmission of programs, a far-sighted strategy for the further development of non-state TV on the huge territory of the former USSR.
There is one other form of non-state company which needs comment: the four or five production companies which have recently been organized to create Slavic-language TV programs for sale to the new cable and broadcast companies. Among them are Ogonyok-video, a taped supplement to the popular weekly program, and TV-Progress, which developed out of the popular Before and After Midnight show during the past four years. Others are a video company created by the resourceful Novosti news agency (which was recently renamed the Russian Information Agency) as well as Neva-TV, a St. Petersburgh company created by the producers of the prime-time shows, Musical Ring and Public Opinion. Finally there is Russkoye Video which produces and leases taped feature films. These companies at present constitute the nucleus of what will become the Slavic-language production industry of the future.
Non-State TV in the Ukraine: A Case Study
Unlike many other republics of the former Soviet Union, the Ukraine has the largest number of TV channels for its population. Although viewers in some rural areas still receive only two channels: Moscow's Central and Kiev's republican TV, city dwellers do much better. Most of them receive three, four, or even more stations, depending on the region of the republic in which they are located. This relatively large choice is being provided by a mixture of non-state cable companies, private channels, and independent broadcasting studios. Many of these cable companies sprang up in the wave of nationalist and local euphoria when the central system was being dismantled. A number of political and economic conditions favoured the rapid growth of private companies in the Ukraine. In 1990 various Ukrainian elites were engaged in a political power struggle and therefore acceded to new broadcast undertakings without considering the political impact of these decisions. In addition, the Ukraine is economically better off than the other ex-USSR republics, so that its people are able to afford the necessary cable subscriber fees. Finally, this republic enjoyed relative calm after the demise of the Soviet Union, all factors which supported the flowering of a first wave of media entrepreneurship.
A second set of factors fostering the availability of greater program variety has to do with the republic's geographic location, it shares common borders with both Poland and Hungary. Enterprising entrepreneurs are recording this "spill over" for re-broadcast in the central and eastern portions of the republic, where there are population pockets who speak the two languages. A further opportunity for pirating or for more formal program exchange agreements is offered by the numerous communication satellites which are situated in geostatic positions over Europe. These can be accessed with a good dish antenna and offer as many as 30 different sky channels. A final set of factors enhancing program variety in the Ukraine are the result of new commercial and professional contacts and agreements establishing so-called "space-bridges" to various foreign cities. Kiev is connected to San Francisco, Tampere to Birmingham, while Lvov is linked with Winnipeg, and Odessa with Calcutta. These contacts which were first set up by Ukrainian state TV are now also utilized by alternative non-state companies which have attracted up to 40% of the state broadcast employees who used to work for the state network. No wonder that "alternative TV" was so hotly debated in the Ukraine and so speedily instituted, when 88% of professional broadcasters polled by Anna Kachkaeva in 1991 believe that the future of Ukrainian TV lies in a "mixed system" set-up which consists of state, public, and private broadcasting institutions.
As in other republics, cable TV grew by leaps and bounds in the Ukraine transforming itself from "midget outlets" into large companies in a matter of months, rather than the 20 years it took the United States and other European countries to create a full-fledged industry. The accelerated development is a result of relatively cheap technologies which enable individuals to take charge and start with a closed-circuit network. All that is required are a couple of apartment houses with 400 to 600 potential subscribers, plus a room in one of the houses to install a VCR for a closed-circuit set-up. These entrepreneurs use several tapes with pirated Western films and cartoons for their programming and exchange their tapes with other mini-studios. Licences for these closed-circuit networks are easily acquired from the local authorities who are in need of extra funds. Initially it was a misnomer to call these "midget outlets" cable stations, but by now many of them have been combined into city-wide networks and have acquired advanced equipment. Some of the midgets, in fact, are now part of very large Ukrainian cable operations which we shall describe below.
Most large cities in the republic have by now organized large cable networks which usually offer viewers a number of different programs. In the city of Lugansk there is a cable company with eight channels, each of which operates four to six hours per day. One of these channels carries television advertisements of local companies, and classified advertisements from private citizens. Another re-transmits children's and entertainment shows from the Intelsat satellite. In the mining area of Donbass 600,000 viewers are served by Slaviansk TV-32, which operates three days a week for about two hours per day. But by far the largest non-state TV company of the Ukraine is TONIS, which incorporated itself in Nikolaev, in the southern part of the republic. It operates three channels, one via cable and two via broadcast technology. Programming and transmission are done from a central studio in a technical complex which has advanced communication facilities. The programming over the two broadcast channels is free to viewers, while they pay a fee for the cable channel. The mixed funding comes from three sources: the founding groups, as well as sponsors and advertisers. This financial base has permitted TONIS to set up a network of 60 TV outlets in 32 towns of the Ukraine, and in the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It has also permitted it to develop its own news program based on reports from a number of correspondents stationed nationwide.
The first non-state broadcaster, "Independent Television of the Ukraine" (NTU) received its official licence from the state authorities in 1990, thus providing a serious alternative to the republican network from the beginning. NTU serves viewers in Kiev and its environs. It airs six times weekly and offers six to twelve hours of news, entertainment, as well as Soviet and foreign films. From the beginning NTU let it be known that it subscribed to a philosophy of free access and information pluralism. Like other public service broadcasters it provides free time for any party or movement which respects the Ukrainian Constitution and the Declaration on State Sovereignty.
Lvov's regional television committee seems to provide yet another way of organizing and financing a non-state service, though this experiment is so recent that it is too early to tell whether it will become a model for yet another form of mixed ownership. This organization plans to produce primarily local programs (820 hours per year) and to sell its remaining time slots to local bodies and organizations for their own program presentations. One hour per week was bought by the local branch of Rukh, the main opposition movement, a half-hour was acquired by the regional communist party committee until it was banned, and 30 minutes each per month have been sold to Electron, an industrial association, and to the Students' Union. The main creative problem for all of these companies however seems to be the dearth of locally-produced programs for use in their time slots. Yet, at the latest conference of independent cable, broadcast, and satellite TV bodies in October 1991, the need for locally produced programming was not even on the agenda. At present Ukrainians are craving foreign programming which is connecting them for the first time with the Western world. Yet, how long this craving will last, is difficult to tell. Lack of financial resources, trained program personnel, and adequate production studios will probably continue to make the production of local programming difficult for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, a number of joint venture companies, set up with American, Canadian, and Polish capital are appearing on the scene to fill the Ukrainian program schedules. UAP (Ukrainian-American Enterprise) is the largest of these joint ventures, which airs Superchannel programs on a licence from Woodlinger Broadcasting Company. The same channel also broadcasts commercial information, selected products of TONIS as well as a weekly baptist religious program.
Khrakov's ATV-1: A Case Study in Entrepreneurship
The establishment of Kharkov's ATV-1 (Alternative TV, Channel 7) provides a colourful example for the Canadian reader of how media entrepreneurship manifests itself in a Ukrainian city. It graphically illustrates what happens in a relatively open and chaotic present, in which most republics have not yet thought about, nor established new rules of broadcast regulation. Such reticence on the part of the republican elites, we suggest, is both a result of the relative unimportance of broadcast issues in a crumbling political and economic environment, and the consequence of 70 years of state communism where "regulation" was equated with centralized administration.
Three different groups were involved in setting up ATV-1: an entrepreneur Vladlen Litvinenko; the newly elected liberal majority of the Kharkov City Soviet, and Kharkov's Radio/TV Transmission Centre authorities (KhRTPTs). Each of these partners brought a different but necessary component to the project and also had its own goals. The entrepreneur Vladlen (created from VLADimir LENin) Litvinenko and his family was the organizer of a closed circuit cable set-up in a city neighbourhood, who realized that he needed more programming to create a proper television business. The TONIS conglomerate had the video products, so he agreed to become a TONIS affiliate and to share the profits of his TONIS-Centre company with the larger organization. The liberal majority of the Kharkov City Soviet joined because it needed a media platform from which it could disseminate its glasnost views to the local electorate. Local newspapers and broadcast outlets in 1990 were still controlled by the communist party committees which were virulently against the newly elected deputies and tried to discredit them publicly. Though the City Soviet made no monetary contribution, it was instrumental in bringing the city's Transmission Centre Authorities (KhRTPTs) on board. They operated under the central Ministry of Communications which had control over frequencies as well as transmission facilities, which were needed for the new channel. The transmission authorities agreed to contribute their technology in return for 10% of the profits of the new cable organization.
After the founding of ATV-1, a subscription campaign was initiated by Mr. Litvinenkos' TONIS-Centre with the help of Sergei Potimkov (38) an interpreter by profession who had become a popular anchor for The Entrance is Free show aired on the local channel. As ATV-1's source of ideas, scriptwriter, and anchor, he and Litvinenko devised a lost-leader campaign offering ATV-1 free for a few months and then as of January 1991 requiring "converters" for decoding at 115 rubles per annum. The campaign was a huge success and the cable enterprise attracted 200,000 subscribers, half of Kharkov's TV homes, and brought in 18 million rubles. Since a profit could be generated with a minimum of only 50,000 subscribers, the Litvinenkos decided to invest in a few Nissan cars for various family members, rather than upgrade their company's cable distribution facilities or to invest in sophisticated editing and production equipment at this early stage.
As ATV-1's idea person, Sergei Potimkov also proposed that the channel distinguish itself from state programming by creating its own intimate "chamber television" format which would highlight local issues and events. This concept was accepted and Potimkov's group of four "pluralist" journalists were given 30% of ATV-1's air time to program as they wished. The other 70% of the schedule would be privately sponsored and combine public affairs and entertainment programming produced by TONIS-Centre journalists. Inadequate production and transmission facilities forced Potimkov and his group to start small. Three interview programs with a local focus were devised by the group and acquired a substantial following in a short time. Plus Seven a metropolitan magazine show aired three times weekly for 90 minutes. It consisted of 10 to 12 "plots" involving political, social, and cultural events in Kharkov, interspersed with musical insertions. In addition there were two other interview shows: Our Wednesday bringing together groups of experts to discuss single themes like the Ukrainian language, ecological matters, or the Gulf War; and a Friday interview, Midnight Guest, presenting prominent visitors to the city. All of these talk shows were supplemented with music programs and a series on religion and its place in modern society (Richter 1991).
The commercially financed TONIS-Centre programs which fill two thirds of ATV-1 air time began with far less imaginative concepts. They consist of the SNT, a news program which imitates the popular TSN Television News Service of the republican station. In addition there are the Criminal Chronicles, which carries local police reports, while the low-cost Tele-Arcade consists of commercial and personal advertisements which are read and teletexed for the audience. Two other start-up programs which were sponsored earned the channel a bad name. They were: the live Cockroach Races with ruble stakes held in the Kharkov Opera House at the cost of 300,000 rubles (Safronov, April 5, 1991) and the ill-conceived interviews with a local millionaire, Vladimir Bezymianny, who was running for the Ukrainian presidency (Matvienko, October 12, 1991). In his Notes of a Madman aired in October 1991, Bezymianny paid 1,000 rubles per minute and promised his listeners that Kharkov would become a new "Klondyke" under his leadership. The film, cartoon, and MTV components of the program are of equally inferior quality. Most of the films aired in the evening slot at 9:30 p.m. (repeated next morning) during the sample week of August 12 to 18, 1991 were U.S. C-grade movies. Among them were: Colors (1988), Earth Girls (1986), Blind Fury (1989), The Evil Dead (1982), and The Golden Child (1986). In spite of an overall lack of quality, the station continued to thrive and make money by adding a four-page tabloid Saturday Courier which has the exclusive right to advertise the ATV-1 weekly program schedule. This publication gained a circulation of about 200,000 almost overnight and has become one of the most popular local papers, because it carries large amounts of advertisements (40%-70%).
By the summer of 1991 a chasm between the non-commercial Potimkov program group of critical journalists and the commercial service (50 people) had opened up over the social role and the professional qualifications of station personnel. The minority journalists were criticized for "looking for defects instead of showing the achievements of perestoika," and were asked to submit their programs for approval. In the showdown the minority group was forced out, even though Sergei Potimkov, the anchor, had been elected to the Regional Soviet. In an interview Potimkov explained that the City Soviet (as a co-owner of the station) had not come to his aid. "Initially we were needed by the City Soviet to destroy the Party stronghold which controlled the local media, but when we started to criticize the new incumbents themselves for incompetence, they dropped us" (Richter, 1991).
The start-up experiences at ATV-1 graphically illustrate what happens in a transition period which is devoid of professional rules and broadcast regulations. Journalists believing in opinion pluralism are finding it not only difficult to retrain themselves in the critical Western mode, but when they begin to achieve this, they lack the professional protection structures which guarantee freedom of speech. Some form of professional unionization will have to be developed to bridge this gap. On the broadcast program level, the TONIS-Centre experience demonstrates how necessary it is to devise a broadcasting framework of rules and regulations in order to protect against the worst examples of shoddy programming and owner greed. Both of these types of considerations are difficult to implement in a country which has been under centralized supervisory control for 70 years and thus views all types of regulation as anathema.
Viewer Responses to Non-State Television
In spite of the fact that audience analysis is in its infancy in the Ukraine, two mail questionnaires have provided insight into viewers opinions concerning alternative television. They were carried out by the Ukrainian Sociological Association in April 1991 (Belokhvostikova 1991) and in November 1991 (Kizilov 1991). The responses indicate that 45% of urban Ukrainians prefer watching non-state television programming, while the republican channel garners only 27%, and Russian TV is approved by only 20% of the audience. Another 17% of viewers prefer the Ukrainian local channel. This indicates that one non-state channel attracts as many viewers as the three state-run channels put together.
In probing program preferences, 51% of viewers chose the non-state channel for its entertainment value and "to forget daily worries." When queried about their favourite program on alternative TV, the first three choices were movies (77%), while a close 67% chose news and public affairs, and a similar percentage (63%) cartoons. In the November 1991 poll viewers were permitted only one program choice. Over 50% of the audience voted for a preview program of upcoming films, followed by an almost equal number (45%) who opted for news. Overall these answers indicate that viewers are primarily attracted by foreign (Western) films and cartoons on non-state stations. When queried about the kinds of films they preferred, viewers answered that they preferred adventure films (72%), followed by comedies (72%), and pornographic films (over 50%) in third place. Classical Soviet and classical Western movies are least popular with the audience, receiving only 38% of the vote. More detailed inquiries into news program content indicate that the audience prefers local news (72%) over foreign reporting which attracted only 35% of the audience. This reinforces the impression that non-state television stations should concentrate on covering local, rather than global events.
The most frequently voiced criticism of alternative television stations is interestingly enough a technical one: poor picture quality. Over half of all respondents registered this complaint in the first questionnaire, while this same complaint was voiced by only 38% of viewers in the November 1991 poll. This indicates that over a six-month period, technical transmission quality had already begun to improve. Such a finding is particularly interesting in the light of the Kharkov case study, which indicated that during the start-up phase, many of the small Ukrainian alternative stations lacked professional anchors and aired programs of inferior artistic quality. Another interesting finding is that viewers on the whole trust non-state TV stations more than the state run networks. In the first poll, 70% of viewers had "complete confidence" and 28% of viewers trusted non-state TV in most cases. In the November 1991 poll these figures had decreased considerably, with only 28% of all viewers having "complete confidence" and another 43% trusting it in "most cases." Whether the remaining 29% of viewers do not trust non-state TV is not clear from the data. In explaining their confidence the viewers commented that they were of the opinion that non-state TV stations reflected the opinion of the "majority of the viewers." A final question which was posed was whether viewers would be willing to pay increased subscription fees for the reception of a non-state TV channel or channels. Here the results indicate that increases in price are not necessarily associated with increasing program quality. As a matter of fact, it was the other way around. The more people were willing to pay, the less they were interested in program quality, translating the Western "lowest common denominator" phenomenon into the Ukrainian scene, where only 25% of viewers demanded better quality fare.
The Legal Context of Broadcast Regulation
At present there are only three acts which regulate mass communication media, including non-state television in the ex-Soviet states. They are the USSR Law on the Press, promulgated on August l, 1990. It contains two important innovations: the right of "work collectives" and individuals to found and operate media, which translates into media ownership by private groups. In addition the law outlawed press--and all other forms of censorship. At present there is no agreement as to whether this Law should apply to both the print and the broadcast media. As a consequence the courts exclude broadcasting undertakings from this liberalized law, and apply only the libel sections to both kinds of media equally. This illustrates how important the electronic media are to all types of government and how all over the world, broadcasting has traditionally been more strictly regulated than the press.
The second law governing mass communication is a decree of the USSR President On Democratization and the Development of Television and Radio Broadcasting in the USSR, promulgated July 15, 1990. This decree which demands "objective and complete coverage of social processes" gives local Soviets as well as public organizations and parties the right to found new television centres or studios. These have to be financed from these organizations' own resources, or if there are studios, through rental agreements with the state's Gosteleradio. The third decree of the Council of Ministers (July 20, 1990) On the Regulation of TV and Radio Organizations in the USSR, requires that new television stations and structures acquire licences from local Gosteleradio bodies. In spite of the fact that there are no cases of licence refusals by Gosteleradio, this decree has two negative implications. First, it enables local bureaucrats to delay the registration process, and they also have the power to suspend licences in emergency situations. During the August 1991 coup for instance, all Moscow dailies were suspended with the understanding that only a handful of dailies loyal to the junta would be re-registered. The same approach was used against independent radio and TV stations throughout the country, making it impossible to get alternative views of events on the air.
The three new laws have generated a heated debate in professional and academic circles, concerning the desirability of special treatment for the electronic media. We are of the opinion that such a distinction is not necessary primarily because special broadcasting laws are usually designed to curtail freedom of speech. On the whole it is more desirable to have minimal legislation in the British common law tradition, which permits everything which is not explicitly forbidden to be broadcast. We are however in favour of rules regulating employment and professional issues in all broadcast companies as well as a set of ethical codes, to be devised by the Union of Journalists, which guarantee freedom from persecution for all journalists.
In addition there is a need to clarify copyright issues. At present Soviet programmers and film makers have no rights to their films and videos whose content can be changed by management. "A high-ranking bureaucrat can presently violate a journalist's copyright, literally silencing him by taking the program off the air or cutting its heart out" according to Eduard Sagalaev, the head of the National Union of Journalists (Izvestia interview April 1990). A related concern which needs to be addressed is the non- adherence of the ex-Soviet republics to the Berne Copyright Convention of 1971. Until recently this was a moot point, because the USSR was not interested in distributing Western video products to its citizens, while the West in turn was uninterested in non-convertible rubles. With the development of glasnost and the pirating of thousands of Hollywood films and video cassettes by state and non-state television stations, the picture has changed. To pressure the ex-Soviet republics into action, U.S. movie producers have boycotted the Moscow International Film Festival in July 1991, hoping that this Western determination coupled with republican desires to become law-abiding world citizens, will encourage the signing of this copyright convention in 1992.
In the coming year we also believe that professional ethical codes and market-determined salaries and working conditions for journalists will have to be negotiated in order to guarantee the orderly growth of non-state television. The Ukraine has various advantages in comparison to other ex-Soviet states in the continued development of non-state television outlets. Chief among these are numerous commercial enterprises as well as heavy and military industries which are able and willing to sponsor programming. Ex-communist party committees too are interested in placing their views before the public. All of these organizations, as we have seen, may become founders and sponsors of non-state outlets. In addition, as already mentioned, the Ukraine shares common borders with Hungary and Poland from which television signals can be received. Finally, there is the relative prosperity of the Ukrainian population which is able to afford to pay for non-state cable and broadcast services. These conditions will not, however, protect viewers from fee increases in the near future which will result from the further concentration of small cable and other non-state stations into larger networks on the DWARD model. Such concentration will of course result in a more homogenized information and entertainment program throughout the republic. Concentration has both advantages and disadvantages. On the advantage side there are the upgraded transmission capabilities which networks will have to institute in order to compete for an increasingly sophisticated audience. On the minus side, concentration into large networks will make it more difficult for alternative voices to be represented, unless a "mixed broadcasting system" with "local access" rights is introduced. Such rules now exist in Scandinavia and in Canada to guarantee "opinion pluralism" on the airways.
The development of a mixed public/private media system, we believe, would counteract two equally negative trends: (1) the co-existence of two monopolies, one government- and the other industry-sponsored, which would between them suppress the "peoples' voices"; and (2) the Romanian solution in which local authorities have cut TV programming to two or three hours daily in order to save energy. Similar developments are already on the horizon for Armenia, Georgia, and the Chita region of the ex-Soviet Union. In this process media regulation and freedom of speech issues are postponed to a "better day" when in fact they should be faced right now.
References
Belokhvostikova, Irena, et al. (1991, April). ATV and its viewers. Unpublished report. Used with permission.
Kizilov, Andrei, et al. (1991, October). ATV one year after. Unpublished report. Used with permission.
Matvienko, Pavle. (1991, October 12). Shutki millionera (Millionaires jokes). Komsomolskaya Pravda, p. 1.
Muratov, Sergei. (1991, Spring). Soviet television and the structure of the broadcasting authority. Journal of Communication, 41(2), 180-183.
Potimkov, Sergei. (1991, October 5). Interview with Andrei Richter. Kharkov.
Safronov, Vladimir. (1991, April 15). Tarakanji bega (Cockroach races). Vechernyaya Moskva, p. 1.
Sagalaev, Eduard. (1990, April 6). Vremya.V Kavychkakh i bez. (Time with and without inverted commas). Izvestia, p. 4.
