It should come as no surprise that the conflict in Ukraine is having an adverse effect on the country’s TV industry. Russia’s, too, is taking a hit.
Aside from the now to-be-expected “in war truth is the first casualty” phenomenon – not just in the two countries, but also much further afield – there is a financial cost to borne for this tragic situation.
In Ukraine, the head of Volia has just said that the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 resulted in the Ukrainian cable market losing 200,000 subscribers. A further 250,000 have been affected by the fighting in the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, while 1% of the 4.5 million total have switched to DTH or OTT services.
This is clearly a difficult time for Ukrainian cable operators, who for one reason or another kept their subscription fees fixed in 2014. They now face the choice of having to raise those fees – by 25-30% in just the first half alone, according to the head of Volia – or reduce the number of channels in their pay-TV packages.
While Volia appears to be on top of the situation, the same probably does not hold true for the country’s smaller operators, some of which may find themselves going to the wall.
Meanwhile in Russia, we have just seen its deputy minister of telecom and mass communications present the country’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) with a bailout plan. Indicating the ways in which the industry can both reduce costs and increase revenues, it is a direct result of the financial crisis now affecting the country. This, of course, has in good part been brought about by not only falling oil prices but also sanctions imposed by the West, the latter in response to the conflict in Ukraine.
That conflict is probably the most serious threat to the stability of post 1989 Central and Eastern Europe, and certainly since the wars that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
One can only hope there is an end to the crisis sooner rather than later.
