You're reading: Eurovision organizing team quits amid conflict with broadcaster

With only three months until the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest is held in Kyiv in May, members of the organization team for the event have quit, the European Broadcasting Union announced on Feb. 13.

Senior team members who quit included the executive producers of the contest, Victoria Romanova and Oleksander Kharebin.

Stepping down along with the producers were Commercial Director Iryna Asman, Event Manager Denys Bloshchynsky, and Head of Security Oleksii Karaban. Overall, more than 20 people quit the Eurovision team, according to Kharebin.

The European Broadcasting Union said in a statement that the team members resigned on Feb. 10 because they “felt they were not able to continue working on the project, owing to matters of staffing.

Bloschynsky published a letter with a joint statement by 21 people who quit. The letter says that the national broadcaster of Ukraine, the NTU, had been interfering in the work of the team after Pavlo Hrycak was appointed as the channel’s deputy head.

“In December 2016, after our team confirmed to the European Broadcasting Union that the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest would be held in Kyiv, we were blocked from working by the appointment of a new acting head of the contest in the Ukraine, who was put in charge of all the aspects of the contest,” the letter reads.

“This appointment and actions that followed it halted preparations for two months.”

The letter also accuses the public broadcaster of non-transparency in making the key decisions, and failing to hold tenders and sign contracts in time with companies and experts responsible for the show’s preparation.

“They didn’t write a single document, didn’t approve our estimates and tenders. The new management deliberately did everything to stop us from working,” Kharebin told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 13.

NTU’S officials Mr. Zurab Alsania, Ms. Victoria Romanova and Mr. Oleksandr Kharebin during the meeting with EBU in October. (Stijn Smulders/ EBU)

National Television of Ukraine officials Zurab Alsania, Victoria Romanova and Oleksandr Kharebin during a meeting with European Broadcasting Union in October. (Stijn Smulders/ EBU)

The NTU appointed Romanova and Kharebin as the executive producers of the 2017 contest after the broadcaster’s former CEO, Zurab Alasania, resigned because the state had reallocated a significant share of the national broadcaster’s funding to holding Eurovision.

Romanova had been the head of the Ukrainian delegation at the Eurovision Song Contest since 2007, and Kharebin was appointed the public broadcaster’s first deputy director general in 2015.

The NTU has acknowledged that tenders have been delayed, including one for the sale of tickets to the show, but says that the preparations for the contest will be completed on time. Hrycak denied interfering in the team’s work, and said that the broadcaster had signed around 30 contracts last month and held several tenders.

However, Kharebin said that the NTU had signed only those contracts that were prepared by his team and submitted to Hrycak in December.

Kharebin also said that the NTU increased spending on the contest from Hr 655 million ($23.6 million) to Hr 856 million ($30.9 million), but had not informed the team. Kharebin said that according to his team’s estimations, public broadcaster is expected to earn around Hr 200 million ($7.2 million) from advertising and tickets. But the new channel’s management included this money as expenses on Eurovision, raising the show’s budget by a third.

Kharebin also said that the government had allowed his team to hold up to 10 tenders under a simplified procedure, but now 62 such tenders are to be held. The NTU said that they were holding all the tenders transparently, but didn’t disclose any details.

“We quit the team because we want Eurovision to happen. We (and the NTU) have different perspectives on how those procedures are done,” Kharebin said.

Hrycak said that NTU would hire other professionals to replace those who quit and that he already has some potential candidates. He also said that those involved in the most important parts of the show, TV production and stage construction, hadn’t resigned.

“It’s a pity these people are leaving our team, but there will be no significant delay in the terms of preparation of the contest,” Grycak said. “We’re moving forward.”

The 2017 Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Kyiv’s International Exhibition Centre on May 9, 11 and 13.