Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Ukraine Tomorrow: who is Stets’s channel being created for?
The Ministry of Information Policy has announced the creation of the television channel Ukraine Tomorrow, which will broadcast in English among other languages. But who will watch it if people in the West say there is already enough information about Ukraine there?
The information ministry wants Ukraine Tomorrow to show the real picture of the world, unlike Russia Today
The head of the newly created Ministry of Information, Yuriy Stets, recently announced the creation of another English-language TV channel—Ukraine Tomorrow. This sparked a wave of debate over the advisability of creating an international broadcasting media outlet, one of whose goals is to counter Russian propaganda. Today there are already several Ukrainian channels that broadcast in English to Western audiences, in particular Ukraine Today, which belongs to the television group "1+1 media" of Ihor Kolomoisky, and the state channel "World Service UTR." The question of how large their target audience is remains highly contested. Is another international broadcasting channel needed in the media market, and will it find viewers?
According to Oksana Romaniuk, a representative of the international organization Reporters Without Borders, there is no need to create another English-language channel to report on Ukrainian events in the West. "From a tactical point of view this is currently impractical. Maybe from a strategic point of view—years from now 10—it could make sense, but right now it resembles ‘Soviet’ practices," the expert believes.
At the present stage, she emphasizes, it is necessary to integrate Ukraine into global news—by ensuring access for foreign correspondents, encouraging international broadcasters to open correspondent offices in Ukraine, and improving the speed and quality of press offices of state institutions, in particular security agencies, since mistakes in their work today "are one of the reasons for defeats in the information war."
Yuriy Stets hopes to find funding for the channel among Western partners
An alternative to Russia Today
Stets himself told DW in an interview that the channel should not only be English-language but, to start with, also Russian- and Ukrainian-language. And its aim is "to convey Kyiv’s official position regarding the reforms we plan to carry out," not just to inform about events in eastern Ukraine. The minister does not see a problem with the fact that English-language channels already exist in Ukraine. For example, Ukraine Today is private, and therefore, Stets emphasizes, is not the voice of official Kyiv. "There are also many TV channels in Europe, but there is Euronews, whose shareholders are European countries," he reminds.
Meanwhile Oksana Romaniuk notes that the performance of even the already established Ukrainian English-language channels is low and explains why they cannot compete with the Russian channel Russia Today. "This Russian channel broadcasts about Europe, and only some of its news concerns Russia or Ukraine," she points out. "If there is a channel that reports only about Ukraine, its target audience will be very small," the expert stresses.
It should be noted that the initiator of Ukraine Tomorrow’s creation, the minister of information policy, does not see problems finding an audience. In his words, with quality and interesting content this media outlet will deliver an alternative viewpoint—unlike Russia Today—and will be aimed, "first of all, at 20 million Ukrainians who live outside Ukraine, and citizens of European and other countries of the world."
Success depends on funding
Information security expert Dmytro Zolotukhin is not as skeptical about creating an international broadcasting channel, but believes its success will depend on the amount of funding. "From the experience of developing Russia Today we know that 500 million dollars were spent on its promotion and delivering content to viewers in the first year after its creation, and the approximate annual budget of that entire structure is about 300 million dollars per year," Zolotukhin notes.
In his view, if the head of the information ministry manages to find a sufficient sum of money—not necessarily equal to Russia Today’s budget—the project could succeed. "Today we have no problems with specialists, content, or the necessary technical means," the expert adds.
There are not yet sufficient funds in the budget for the new channel. Yuriy Stets hopes to find support for the project from European and American partners, but so far talks are only negotiations—no real agreements have been made yet.
"There is enough information about Ukraine in the West"
Focusing solely on countering Russian propaganda when defining the goal of creating the channel is unwise, because that "sooner or later will fizzle out," advises information security expert Zolotukhin. "In my opinion, the global development of Ukrainian broadcasting to the West should be based on the fact that we build our own informational world, in which if we allow any lies, they will not come from us," the expert says.
Will there be demand abroad for information from Ukraine Tomorrow? Regarding Germany in particular, there are significant doubts. Hendrik Zerner, spokesperson for the German Journalists Association DJV, told DW that "the coverage of events in Ukraine (in the West—Ed.) over the last year and a half has been detailed and comprehensive." "The last thing the public needs is another propaganda channel. Because it is quite possible that Ukraine Tomorrow will operate in exactly that way," Zerner emphasizes.
dw.de
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Ukrainе Tomorrow: для кого створюється канал Стеця?". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
