It is difficult to imagine the history of independent Ukraine without modern Ukrainian media.
In Part I, we covered opposition media during the Soviet period, but after 1991 a lot changed.
Most will be familiar with political talk shows on national television channels, remarkable for their political intensity and lively debate which, even during the dictatorship of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, stood out for being balanced, with representatives of government and opposition appearing in equal measure.
It is impossible to imagine modern Ukraine without diverse business media, endless interviews, analysis, market assessments and reports, It is also impossible to imagine Ukraine without hundreds of regional websites and popular social media channels.
However, Ukraine’s media landscape was not always like this. Just 36 years ago in 1990 – a year before independence – Ukraine had only two television channels, both under the tight control of the Communist Party, It was similar for Ukrainian radio, whilst there were three national and dozens of local newspapers.
Today, Ukrainian media span the entire spectrum of media activity – several major media holdings, several major national television channels, dozens of local entertainment outlets, the public broadcasting network, bureaus, entire editorial offices… the list goes on.
And Ukraine arrived at this point in a mere 35 years – alongside the development of its institutions, businesses and the political landscape.
So how did Ukraine manage to achieve this, and what path did its media take?
H2:: Zero standards, zero restrictions – Oksana Sokolova on the birth of Ukrainian television
Ukrainian television began its journey in the early 1990s with two channels controlled by the Communist Party. Post independence, they became Ukrainian television channels – UT-1 and UT-2. However, genuine independence and modern standards were still a long way off, as most journalists and editors had been trained in the Soviet system.
Sokolova recalls those years. She is the creator of Ukraine’s most successful weekly television program, “Facts of the Week” on ICTV, which marked its 20th anniversary this winter. At the dawn of Ukrainian television, Sokolova was 20 years old and had only just entered the profession. In 2012, the magazine Focus placed her at 64th in their list of the 100 most influential women in Ukraine.
“In Cherkasy, I started at a regional company that was simply created from scratch. There was just a radio company and, in the 1990s, they decided to launch television. And it really reminds me of when YouTube began to spread. It offered such unlimited freedom when everyone on YouTube was just starting out, everyone did whatever they wanted, everyone came up with things. Plus, people borrowed whatever experience they could find around the world,” Sokolova recalls.
“Television in the 1990s was exactly the same. Zero rules, zero understanding. Zero restrictions. You did whatever you wanted. Freedom. And it was, of course, fantastic… The older generation came into television… they were still operating in the old format and brought the newspaper Pravda with them, with its style and fears –‘ this is allowed, this is not allowed’. And there was another generation – ours – which was breaking everything, which wanted things to be different and did not care about anything,” she explains.
Sokolova says journalists were in the same boat as other active members of the new Ukrainian society where, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a market economy emerged and money began to flow in. At the same time, alongside the new media, the first business people, first politicians, and first criminals of the new era, all emerged.
“In the 1990s, there was a huge spread, of course, of horoscopes, fortune-tellers, all sorts of predictions… Uncertainty, a lack of understanding of what would happen next, created a strong desire among people to somehow find an interpretation of what to expect. That was the first thing. Secondly, the 1990s was all about survival – looking for where you could make money, about the formation of that initial business environment. It was also a time of very fierce political battles and a lot of political killings. And for me, especially the first half of the 1990s, was about elections associated with shootings, criminal kingpins and the physical seizure of polling stations. On the one hand, there was this story; on the other, there was a very powerful promotion of the first new political leaders at the time – Levko Lukianenko, the Horin brother, Viacheslav Chornovil while he was still alive, that is, the first elections, in 1994,” Sokolova says.
Sometimes, this environment proved dangerous for the journalists themselves, especially when they began investigating schemes involving fraudsters with criminal backgrounds.
“There was no legislation, and there were no institutions. Everything happened very chaotically and spontaneously. I have one vivid example when a tough guy from Cherkasy – I don’t even remember his profession – decided to run for president. It was, I think, 1994. And he based his campaign on the claim that he had reached an agreement with the Libyan leadership that Libya would employ one million Ukrainians. He opened offices to collect applications. Registration cost one hryvnia – a tiny amount of money. But the lines were enormous because it was the 1990s, there was no work, salaries were not being paid properly... I was assigned to make a report about it. And the first thing I did was take the team to the Libyan consulate to get a comment, and we asked them about this agreement. They looked at us with enormous eyes: ‘What million Ukrainians? Who is this man, what initiative is this?!’ It was exposed… I aired the report, and it went out on Ukrainian television. The shock was that people genuinely believed him, but there were absolutely no ways to verify it. And because of that, the man… threatened to kill me. I had security for some time… After a while, he actually killed someone and ended up in prison,” Sokolova says.
Over time, the situation began to change. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the first major television channels began to emerge – 1+1, Inter and ICTV. In some cases, there was international investment; in others, big business became involved; and in others, Russian money flowed in.
“On 1+1, which initially shared airtime with the state-owned UT-2, the first TSN newscast with Alla Mazur aired in 1997. It was such an event! A breakthrough! I still remember it!... Great original programs began appearing on 1+1. The channel quickly acquired its own broadcast frequencies. The investment there was American. As for Inter, it emerged on the basis of the nationwide UT-3 network. Russian ORT – today’s Channel One – was among its founders. So, from the beginning, it was a joint Ukrainian-Russian television project, which later developed into an independent Ukrainian channel, but for a long time retained Russian cultural programming,” Sokolova recalls.
“ICTV was launched even earlier than Inter and Plus, in 1992. It was a joint Ukrainian-American commercial project. The American side invested money and its own content: films and music. The Ukrainian state broadcaster RRT provided frequencies, transmitters and the technical network. Initially there was no news, nor were there original Ukrainian programs. All of that appeared after 2000, when the channel was bought by Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk. The newsroom with the current news studio appeared about a year and a half to two years later. Morning broadcasting was launched at the same time, and I opened it as a presenter,” Sokolova says.
Young television tried to borrow from everywhere it could – from European practices, with American television standards having a particularly strong influence. The analytical weekly “Facts of the Week,” which Sokolova created and headed in 2006, follows an “American” standard. It had not been popular in Ukraine before. But that does not mean Ukraine lacked its own drive to develop a distinctive national content tradition. Two major film studios that had operated since Soviet times, the activity of the diaspora and a large number of creative young people, gave Ukrainian television a breath of fresh air and quickly made it authentic.
“Independence gave oxygen to hundreds of our own talents. It gave them the opportunity to express themselves, create and experiment… Those who had been out of favor and whom the system had blocked, those who had been overshadowed by the Soviet center, came to the forefront, along with talented young people inspired by the idea of creating their own country. As a result, the 1990s saw the formation of its own school, very powerful, profound and modern…,” Sokolova explains.
Over time, major television channels came under the influence of big business. ICTV entered the orbit of steel magnate Viktor Pinchuk, 1+1 became associated with billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, Inter remained partly Russian-owned, while Ukraina was part of the holding of Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov. Sokolova attributes this to the fact that big business was willing to invest resources in developing media, which sometimes lacked sufficient revenue from an advertising market that was only emerging in the 2000s.
However, this did not necessarily mean that ownership by large business holdings became a threat to freedom of speech. On the contrary – while Russia was sinking deeper into authoritarianism in the 2000s, the ownership of channels by competing financial-industrial groups in Ukraine, contributed to the development of freedom of speech and pluralism.
“As for “Facts of the Week,” I managed to defend the position of neutrality, although I believe a high price was paid for it. And I want to say that at a time when different channels were pouring out filth and waging personal wars between different oligarchic, business and political groups, we did not get involved. We gave both sides [of the story]. It was not easy, but our investor allowed us to maintain that position. We always had a policy of being balanced and presenting different points of view. And secondly, I made it a rule that we would never throw personal insults or personal attacks against anyone. I believe that the fact we have been around for 20 years and preserved our reputation is partly thanks to this,” Sokolova says.
In part three, we will explore the world of regional media, especially during the wartime.