The head of the National Commission for Freedom of Speech and Development of the Information Sphere under the Ukrainian president, Taras Petriv, said on Thursday during a roundtable held in Kyiv that the launch of a public broadcasting service in Ukraine is possible in 2010.
“Today, as never before, the time is coming when we can say that the introduction of a public broadcasting service system could be possible in 2010. I don’t see any worries. This is not a process that needs a lot of consolidation,” he said.
Mr Petriv said that it is impossible to simultaneously have state and public broadcasting services in Ukraine. He said that political courage and successful management was needed for the introduction of a public broadcasting service.
In turn, the first deputy head of the parliamentary committee for freedom of speech and information, Andriy Shevchenko, said that public broadcasting should be based on absolutely new principles. “This means independent financing, independent staff policy and independent editorial policy,” he said.
Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine José Manuel Pinto Teixeira said that the European Union would continue cooperation with Ukraine on the introduction of a public broadcasting service.
(Source: Interfax)
on Dec 6th, 2009 at 08:30
Launching public broadcasting service is POSSIBLE. That’s the key word in the whole story. In most Slavic languages the word ‘possible’ means that it’s not going to happen.
Ukraine will have a new president in 2010. I’m pretty sure Taras Petriv will be gone, too. That’s why he can freely talk nonsense like ‘independent financing’ and ‘independent editorial policy’. It’s likely that he has just a few months left.
Any election campaign is a time for promises. In recent days Yuschenko already promised signing a visa-free agreement with EU should he win the election. Ms.Timoshenko announced that she already prepared a list of people that has to be ‘ended’ (meaning ’shot’) should she win the elections. Yanukovich promises friendship and cooperation with the whole world.
on Dec 6th, 2009 at 13:50
I heard about such discussions (introducing public broadcasting in the Ukraine) already years ago.
And what is the agenda behind these statements? To me it seems that the idea is to go the East German way, to “wind up” the NRCU and creating a completely new broadcasting organization. All employees would be fired, probably not even the NRCU buildings being used again by the new organization (unthinkable? check out Nalepastraße and Rudower Chaussee in Berlin if you think so) etc.
For proof that such a radical method is no matter of course take a look at Czech and Slovak broadcasting. (I choose this example because the circumstances in Czechoslovakia and the GDR were pretty similar, so a direct comparison is possible.)