Opposition gets more ads on Ukraine's TV than government, monitoring shows

The political advertizing of opposition parties on the leading Ukrainian TV channels is 1.5 times longer than the advertizing of pro-government parties, according to the results of the airtime monitoring being conducted by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, reads a statement posted on the committee's Web site on Friday.

On September 24-30, opposition parties showed direct advertising on TV channels lasting a total of 17 h 18 min 39 s, while pro-government parties showed 11 h 42 min 23 s.

Coverage of the opposition's activity in the news exceeds that of pro-government forces: in terms of time – by 1.2 times (1 h 08 min 32 s versus 58 min 32 s) and in terms of the number of videos – by 1.8 times (67 vs 37).

According to the monitoring, the airtime given to opposition representative on the most popular talk shows was nearly three times longer that the airtime allocated to pro-government speakers (3 h 24 min 30 s versus 1 h 38 m).

"Taking into account the general time of the presence of pro-government and opposition forces - the subjects of the electoral process on leading television channels, the opposition is represented 1.54 times more (21 h 51 m 41 s versus 14 h 18 m 55 s)," the committee said.

The study analyzed political advertizing on such TV channels as Inter, 1 +1, ICTV, Novy Kanal, STB, Ukraina, First National TV Channel, and Channel 5.