You're reading: Erotica may return to Ukrainian pay TV

Four foreign erotic channels – Playboy, XXL, EroxHD and Russkaya Noch (Russian Night) – have applied for licenses with the television and radio regulator to broadcast in Ukraine. The decision will most likely be positive, regulators say, which means that after a four-year hiatus of erotic shows on television, viewers will be able to watch them again.


The regulator, the National Television and Broadcasting Council, is currently preparing a bill to allow for the retransmission of erotic channels. Once it passes and comes into force, Ukrainian cable providers will be able to obtain permission to broadcast the channels. A decision by the regulator may be taken in May, according to its press service. Before deciding, the council will monitor the erotic channels to ensure they do not broadcast pornography. Pornography is considered a more explicit and graphic category than erotic.

Serhiy Boyko, president of Volya, the nation’s largest cable television provider with more than 1.7 million subscribers, plans to broadcast the erotic channels despite a small number of potential customers.

“A few years ago when the economic situation was more stable, nearly 7 percent of the audience subscribed to erotic channels,” he said. “Now the number of such subscribers will not exceed five percent.”

The company income could rise by 1.5-2.5 percent with the move, he said.

“We understand that the market of paid TV services (in Ukraine) is stagnating now, that’s why Ukrainians officials are ready to give these channels the green light,” Hryhoriy Shverk, deputy head of the TV regulator, told Ekonomichna Pravda in an interview published on April 8.

During the past four years Ukrainian cable and satellite providers did not risk broadcasting erotic programming without approval from regulators, fearing that local officials could label them as pornographic.

However, a few years ago many Ukrainian cable and satellite TV providers aired erotic channels as part of channel packages until regulators started branding them as pornographic. As a result, in March 2011 Volya ceased broadcasting its night package Nichnyy that included erotic channels. In December 2011, regulators prohibited the adult channel TV 1000 Action, aired by Viasat satellite TV provider, from broadcasting on similar grounds.

Distributing pornography is prohibited in Ukraine, whereas erotic shows are legal, as long as they meet legal requirements. According to law, erotic and sexual TV production can’t be advertised, and should not be available to children and minors.

The four erotic channels that applied for broadcasting licenses are optimistic about receiving them despite the difficult situation.

The channels submitted documents confirming their registration and the legitimacy of their work in the European Union. Yuriy Lebedev, Head of FilmBox in Ukraine, a U.K.-based broadcaster of Filmbox brand movie channels including the EroxHDerotic channel, sees the Ukrainian market as promising. Both TV cable operators and governmental authorities now agree that adult films can be broadcast in Ukraine, he says.

“Erotic channels are the most popular in the world alongside with movie and sports channels,” Lebedev told the Kyiv Post. “We understand that adult content is not the most necessary thing for subscribers in a failing economy, but in any case it will draw additional funds to the paid TV sector that will favor the future development of the sector.”

FilmBox also is ready to sign agreements with Ukrainian providers once they are licensed.

Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected] .